


Dragon Moon

by Satirrian



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Bounty Hunter Zuko, Gen, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Spirit-Cursed Zuko, Zuko (Avatar) is not Nice, Zuko Angst, Zuko and Iroh are on the run in the Earth Kingdom, Zuko is a Dragon, Zuko is a WereDragon, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko is slightly unhinged, but only sometimes, june and zuko are friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2020-07-25 21:40:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 126,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20032777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satirrian/pseuds/Satirrian
Summary: For as long as Zuko could remember, he remembered being a dragon. He knew what it meant to fly through the skies and taste the water of the clouds. He knew the feeling of starlight on scales, of the humming heart of fire within him.Or -After his Agni Kai, Prince Zuko is officially declared dead to the world.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I have not seen Legend of Korra, and I haven't read the comics.

The night was darker than her thoughts as Azula sat poised around the fire pit. She would not know, as she sat there, that this would be the last time she spoke to her friends for three years. Ty Lee slumped on her left, like a wilted flower, clutching at her knees. On her right, Mai was silent like a wooden doll. There was no moon in the sky, just a mask of weak little lights. Azula found herself clenching her fist and watching as smoke trailed up from between her fingers. 

“How about a story?” Azula asked, voice quiet but steady. 

Ty Lee blinked at her. “I’m sorry, Azula. I can’t think of anything right now.”

Mai didn’t say anything. 

Azula stared down at her fist. “I’ll tell the story.”

A weak smile graced Ty Lee’s lips. “I love your stories. You almost never tell them!”

Mai broke in, her drawling voice teetering on the edge of bitterness, “It’s about _him, _isn’t it?”

Ty Lee seemed to shrink again. “Oh.”

Azula smiled like cracked glass. “Less of a story and more of a legend. A stupid spirit-tale.” When no one said anything, Azula looked up to the blackest sky. “They say my brother was born on a moonless night.” In her mind she pictured her mother, a phantom shadow with fake smiles, and a still baby clutched to her chest. “He was dead on arrival. A corpse.” 

Azula turned back to the firepit, orange light dancing on her face. “My mother was upset, of course. They say she cried like a rancid thing. Something must have broken in her because she called out to the great spirit Agni, with tears streaking down her cheeks. But she cried out to an empty sky. There was no blazing sun to cry to, nor any weak lamp of a moon. There was nothing, but still my mother begged. And then, they say, that my brother’s eyes started to glow with the golden light of Agni himself.”

Ty Lee gasped, her hand coming to her mouth. 

Azula seemed to smile wider. “In the night, they say a great creature flew through the sky, blocking out the stars. It landed in front of my mother, its eyes like runaway flames in a sea of darkness. My mother asked if it was here to help her. And it said that it was here to take away her son, forever. My mother clutched my brother close to her chest, but that did nothing as the great beast opened its mouth and breathed out flame. They say it engulfed them both, and the night stole their screams.”

Azula paused in her story, watching her friends. Ty Lee leaned toward her, eyes bright. Mai’s shoulders were tensed. 

“And then they died,” Azula finished. 

Ty Lee pouted, jumping up and twirling. “Azula!” she cried. 

Mai snorted. “Where did you hear this nonsense?”

Azula just smiled. “You’d be surprised what things pass between these walls.”

Mai turned her head away, until Azula could only see a curtain of glossy black hair. “You shouldn’t be joking about that,” she muttered. 

Ty Lee settled back on the ground.

Azula felt herself go still, her breath caught on something tight in her throat. 

“It’s not like he’s going to _care_,” Azula suddenly snarled, whipping her hand over the firepit and curling the flames until their light suffocated. “He’s dead now. Father _killed_ him.” 

Darkness descended on the group as a roar sounded in the distance. 

* * *

——

* * *

The bounty hunter called himself Lee. A simple name, Ryung thought, for a complicated man. The man’s long black hair hung loose and tattered, dull and unwashed. His outer robe was dark brown, with rips and tears sewn back together just barely concealed in the dark fabric. He seemed poor, like a man who never slept in the same place each night. He seemed dangerous, but that was good, in a bounty hunter. 

Ryung tried to ignore his uneasiness as he took a sip of his huangjiu, sitting in the back corner of this town’s small but popular bar. The air was filled with a sweet-smelling smoke, and the candle in front of him flickered, casting long shadows. 

The man’s face was sometimes hard to parse through his hair, but whenever he caught a glimpse of the off-color swirls of melted flesh that covered nearly half Lee’s face, Ryung found himself unable to look away. The other side of the hunter’s face, by comparison, seemed young. Ryung wouldn’t place his age over twenty, but he was no child, either. That scar had seen to that.

The hunter was armed, blades sheathed at his side. That was good, Ryung told himself. A bounty hunter should be armed. But the lightness of his feet, the readiness in his stance, told him that Lee could move in an instant, strike at his throat before Ryung could manage to take a single step back. 

Ryung pushed all his unease into the ground. “Everyone’s too scared to do anything,” he rasped, clutching his cane underneath the table. “But something’s got to be done about him. The word’s out that he’s a deserter.”

“From the Army?” Lee said, his single eyebrow drawn down. 

“What else is there, boy?” Ryung snapped, and his uneasiness swept over him. He tried to convince himself that it was the situation, and not the person, which worried him. But Ryung had met other bounty hunters in his long life. None of them had the same eerie fierceness of presence. And that’s what it was, he realized. A distinct focus. The power of the man’s complete, undivided attention. It was like a weight, whenever the man’s eyes turned towards him. Ryung didn’t meet them. “Earth Army deserter started passing through town about a week ago. Started hassling folks in the street. Incoming caravans never made it to market. Some folks wander in, pockets emptied, wounded. Some folks are still missing.”

“Sounds like a job for the Earth Army,” Lee said. 

“Those lazy weasel-snakes would rather burn in a hole than do their jobs!” Ryung snarled, clenching his cane. “Those sons of deal-breakers made this beetle-worm, and I want him pounded into the earth.”

Lee nodded once, crossing his arms. “What’s the offer?”

“I need the road clear for when my caravan moves to Hua Li in three days’ time. Bring the deserter to me, dead, and you’ll get forty gold coins.”

The hunter narrowed his eyes, and it struck Ryung, at the moment, that his eyes were yellow. Ryung looked away. It might have been the candlelight. “Make it fifty,” Lee said. 

Sweat bunched on Ryung’s palms. He licked his lips. “You’ll get forty-five, and you’ll get nothing if you don’t bring me a head before the markets close.”

The bounty hunter stood up, then, abruptly. Lee bowed to him, a small, irreverent bow, and Ryung watched warily as he stalked out of the dingy, smoke-filled bar. 

* * *

——

* * *

Zuko found his uncle chatting to the young innkeeper about fabric dyes. Zuko couldn’t remember her name. She was wide-set, her forehead lined, her mouth small and unused to smiling. Zuko remembered how she had introduced herself as the innkeeper’s wife, though her husband had never made an appearance, and, as far as Zuko and everyone else who stayed at the two-story tavern could tell, she did everything that an innkeeper was supposed to do. Zuko dismissed it as a stupidity of the Earth Kingdom. 

“Ebony seeds are so hard to come by, these days,” Uncle commiserated, fanning himself. “What I wouldn’t give for a good Omashu dye.”

The innkeeper was smiling, which was normally rare, but not around his uncle. “It’s the taxes. The army keeps on demanding more and more. Honestly, what are we supposed to do, stay inside forever?”

“Guanyin forbid,” Uncle said easily, like any other Earth Kingdom man. Zuko scowled. Even now, after so long, it bothered him. 

“Uncle,” Zuko interrupted, and the innkeeper jumped, like she hadn’t noticed him. 

Iroh glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, and whatever he saw, he decided it was urgent. “I am sorry, Lady Yun, perhaps another time we can catch up on the stirring fragilities of good weaving.”

He bowed to her, and the innkeeper said, shyly, “You’re always welcome here, Mushi.” 

Zuko rolled his eyes and stomped up the stairs to their small rented room. As soon as the door closed, Zuko said, “I got a job.”

Uncle folded his hands into his brown robe. “Did you?”

“Old man put a bounty on an Earth Kingdom deserter,” Zuko said, bending down and digging through his small bag on the floor. “I’m going to go out and find him.”

“Nephew,” his uncle began, and Zuko knew what he was going to say.

“It’s good money,” Zuko barked, pulling out a coil of rope and an extra knife, looping the rope around his belt and sticking the knife into his boot. “The world’s expensive, Uncle,” and maybe Zuko was shouting, “—we’re not gonna get by on hopes and dreams!”

Iroh stared at him contemplatively. After a moment, he said, calmly, “It’s been almost two years, hasn’t it?”

Zuko stared down at his bag and said nothing. His shoulders felt tense. “More than two years,” he said. 

“A long time,” his uncle hummed. “A long time to be running.”

“There’s nothing else we can do,” Zuko said, his back turned. He clenched his fists and felt the heat in the center of his palms. “We just need proof. We just need proof that you’re not a traitor, and I’ll— I’ll do something, and then we’ll go home. That’s it.”

“That’s it,” Uncle repeated. “I admire your determination, Nephew, but that is not exactly a plan.”

Zuko pushed himself to his feet. “What would _you_ have us do?” he snarled. 

Iroh frowned. “The surrounded platypus-bear knows when to sit still.”

“I’m not in the mood to hear your metaphors, _Uncle.” _Zuko moved to push past him. Iroh caught his shoulder. 

“The Earth Kingdom is a vast and wonderful place. No one will notice one old man and his nephew moving into town, especially not a large one. Think about it.” Iroh gently squeezed his shoulder. “We can get safer, better jobs. Our own room.”

Zuko tugged his shoulder away and took another step. 

“We are expending more of our energy than we need, Nephew,” Iroh continued. “No one has pursued me for quite some time. We are as free as we ever can be.”

“We’d be living a lie,” Zuko said, hand on the doorknob. “That’s not free.”

His uncle said nothing as he walked out. 

* * *

———

* * *

When Zuko woke up, days after his Agni Kai, he first realized that he was alive. 

Then he realized that he was alone, on a bed, and imprisoned. The pain beat at him relentlessly, and he found he had run out of tears. He shivered, wishing that someone was there— anyone at all. 

Every time he closed his eye, the flames came at him, again, like the memory was stuck on a permanent loop inside his mind. It was one eye now. The other hurt too much.

He did not know the time or the day. Who had put the bandages on him? When had he last felt the sun? When was the next new moon? He lifted his wrist and felt resistance. A jangling sound. Chains. 

_“You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher.”_

“Father…” he whispered, and clenched his eye shut. 

Weeks passed alone in the cell. Twice a day, someone would come to bring him food. In the early days, Zuko hadn’t been able to move. As more days passed, hunger and thirst pushed him to crawl to the door. 

No one came to replace his bandages, so he ripped them off. His cell was much larger than the typical. Easily the size of a small barn, made entirely of stone. In the ceiling, in one corner of the room, there was a grate, where Zuko could just barely make out the sky. 

Zuko watched the sky. He watched as the moon grew to full, and then began to shrink. He watched it each night, dreading what was to come. 

On that day, someone entered the cell. A fully armored guard, their face covered by their helmet. 

Zuko stood up and licked his lips. His voice was croaky, rough with disuse. “Are you here to let me out?” he asked. 

The guard said nothing, and stood in front of the door. 

“Please,” Zuko found himself saying, taking a step toward them, “Please, I don’t want to stay here any longer.”

“Not any farther,” the guard ordered, their voice higher pitched, like a woman. 

Zuko stopped. “Why,” he started, but found he had to cough, “Why am I here? Please, I— I don’t know why I’m here.”

“You are no longer Prince Zuko,” the guard stated, and a jarring shock passed through him. “Prince Zuko died a traitor in Agni Kai.”

“But I’m— I’m not dead,” Zuko cried, his arm slashing out, chains twisting, sparks flying from his fingertips. “I’m not dead! Get my father! Get my father and tell him I’m not dead!”

There was a single knock against the metal door. 

The guard opened it, and a tall figure with long black hair walked into the cell. 

Zuko fell to his knees, his eye caught in the memory of fire streaming towards his face. 

“Get up,” the man ordered. 

Zuko flinched. 

“Get up,” the man ordered again. 

The guard walked forward and pulled Zuko to his feet. He felt like his knees would collapse. His eye stayed on the stone floor. 

His father walked closer, until Zuko could see his dark red robe barely a foot away. 

“Had you been anyone else,” his father began, softly, like a viper-snake preparing to strike. “I would have banished you. As it is,” his father grabbed his chin and ripped Zuko’s head up, his grip bruising, “you’re useful to me, Zuko. Lest you forget all the ways that you have assisted me?”

“N-no, Father,” Zuko choked out.

“One day, I may call on you. Until that day, await my orders.” His father released him, and Zuko’s head slumped. 

“Don’t make me regret saving you,” his father said, his back already turned to him, heading back through the metal door. 

Zuko’s hands shook. He heard the metal door slam shut. After a moment, he croaked out, “Yes, Father.”

The guard strode over to him then, pulling out a key from her belt. “Hold out your hands,” she ordered. 

In a haze, almost unaware of himself, Zuko did as told. 

After a few clicks, the handcuffs hit the ground. Zuko stared at his bloodied and scabbed wrists. 

The guard turned to leave, but before she opened the door, she paused. “Don’t cause trouble,” she said. “If you do good, we’ll get you some better meals.”

The door closed around her, and Zuko was alone. The haunting visage of his father’s face was stuck behind his eyes. His legs collapsed, his breathing coming in panicked spurts. His hands hit the ground, and he felt the cold grittiness of the grey stone. “I’ll be good,” he whispered. “I’ll be good.”

Tears poured out of his one good eye, dotting the ground with darker spots. He was alone again. His father needed him to be useful.

_His father shooting out a stream of fire— _

He crawled over to the grate in the ceiling and watched the sky turn red with dusk. Slowly, the red darkened to night, and Zuko closed his eyes. 

* * *

——— 

* * *

For as long as Zuko could remember, he remembered being a dragon. He knew what it meant to fly through the skies and taste the water of the clouds. He knew the feeling of starlight on scales, of the humming heart of fire within him. 

It was his curse to know, to have the spirits steal his body once a month. 

He remembered begging his mother why, why did he have to hide each moonless night? Why couldn’t he play with all the other dragon-children?

Because there were no other dragon-children. Only him. A monster. Azula liked to call him that. When Zuko was young, he remembered carrying Azula on his back, her small body tucked behind his horns, flying through the Palace sky. She laughed like the sun, back then. Zuko wished he could forget how happy she had been. 

Zuko stared up at the night sky through the grate of his cell. There was no moon. Slowly, Zuko tugged off his robe and pants, neatly folding them on his rickety bed. He felt his inner fire pulse, twisting within him. From orange to gold to violet to green to blue. 

He glowed white as the spirits transformed him. His mother had described it once. He remembered her soft voice, kneeling next to him in front of their turtle-duck pond. The light dappled through the trees and lit up her face. 

“One moment you are my son, in my image, and then you are something other, with velvety wings and glossy red scales. Your teeth turn sharper— yes, _much_ sharper,” here she laughed as Zuko touched his sharp canines. “Dark curved horns sprout out of your head, and dark black fur curves along your spine and down your tail. Your hands become claws, and your wings sweep out through the air with great billows.” She had stuck out her own arms and waved them up and down. Zuko had laughed. 

Ursa continued, her voice nostalgic, “You know, when you were a baby, you were only three feet long. I could still carry you then, but just barely.” She had paused, frowning down at the water. “By the time you were six you were much larger. It was getting harder to hide. Do you remember,” she began, “taking Azula through the skies?”

“I remember,” he had said. 

“But you know the danger, now. No one must ever know.”

“I know,” he had agreed solemnly, his heart weighted down with the world. 

Now, Zuko beat his wings, feeling the tips of them scrape against the far sides of each side of his cell. He curled them in, twisting in a tight circle, feeling the pain of his mother in every step. More than that, he felt the festering pain in his face, the minor wounds on his wrists. 

He collapsed on his stomach, resting his head on his claws. Soon, his father would want him to be useful. He had to be useful. 

His cell felt cloying, in that moment. A panicked energy suddenly swept through him. He needed to see the sky. He had to get out. He stood up and rammed his head into the metal door. A loud clang reverberated through the air, and Zuko felt the left side of his face scream in pain. He felt like screaming. He opened his mouth and roared, snarling at the door which was now too small for him to exit. He clawed at the walls. His wings beat at the ceiling. His tail whipped through the air, slashing at anything he could touch. His bed knocked over. His handcuffs smashed into the wall. His fire called to him, but— 

_His father shooting out a stream of fire— _

He held back his fire. The thought of calling it up made him sick. 

Zuko did not know how much time had passed before the guard came. He panted, feeling small scratches and broken scales all along his body. There were long lines torn into the stone of the walls and floor and ceiling, and Zuko felt wrong. His tail flashed back and forth. 

The guard opened the door gently, like she was afraid of startling him. But Zuko had smelled her approach. Zuko sat back on his haunches and watched her fully enter the room. 

When she saw him, she flinched. “Frost it all,” she hissed. 

Zuko flicked out his tongue to taste the air. 

“A real blasted dragon,” she continued, wondering, as if he wasn’t there. “It’s _true._ Agni give me strength.”

Zuko shifted on his feet. He brought his head closer to the guard, close enough that she flinched again. With one whisker, he reached out. 

“What’re you— Stop that,” she said, her hand flicking his whisker away. When her hand made contact, he sent her a picture of the Palace gardens. 

She flinched again. “Agni. Dragons,” she muttered. She seemed to gather herself within her armor. “You’re not going anywhere tonight,” she barked. “Stay quiet and stay _still_.”

Zuko stepped back, and the guard left him alone. 

* * *

—

* * *

Days passed like weeks. He lived in dread of the day that his father might call on him to do his bidding. He lived in dread that his father may never call on him, and he would be forgotten inside his cell like a toy tossed into a well. A broken doll staring up at the sky through a grate. 

He spent his days listlessly. He wondered how many people knew he was alive. He thought of Azula. Maybe she was happy, now that he was dead. It was a bitter, sharp-edged thought, like picking up broken glass. 

_“Dad’s going to kill you. Really, he is.”_

_His father shooting out a stream of fire— _

Again and again, his thoughts turned to his uncle. Zuko didn’t think his uncle knew, and it hurt him. Uncle thought he was dead, just like Lu Ten. His uncle kept on losing people, and somehow Zuko felt like it was his fault, somehow. It was moments like these where he scrambled to his metal door and tried to rip it open, the chains around his wrists jangling like tolling bells. 

His uncle wouldn’t leave him here. He wanted to think his uncle wouldn’t do that. 

As more time passed, his hair grew longer and unrulier. He stopped trying to tie it up, and left it hanging in front of his face. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, inside the cell. 

His guard talked to him, sometimes. He learned that her name was Bashira, and she was one of Ozai’s personal guard. 

“Does he ever—” Zuko began, weakly, leaning back against the wall, talking to Bashira through the flap where she inserted his dinner. “Does he ever ask about me?”

“No,” Bashira said, simply. 

Zuko didn’t eat that day.

At night, under the light of the moon, thoughts plagued him that wouldn’t ever leave. Why _wouldn’t_ his uncle leave him here? After all, his father had. His sister had. His mother had left him years ago. Everyone was destined to leave him, it seemed. 

It was because he was weak. He was a failure. His firebending was amateur. His schooling lackluster. He was everything a Crown Prince shouldn’t be. He was spirit-cursed, and he could tell no one, because he would be hunted down and killed. Only a weakling lived in fear, and Zuko felt fear every morning and every night. 

Zuko once dreamt that his curse was broken, and on a moonless night, he stayed a boy the entire night through. In his dream, his father visited him in the morning and grabbed him by the neck, and with the other hand scorched the other side of Zuko’s face. 

Zuko spent a long morning wondering if he would have preferred to die.

* * *

—

* * *

On an uneventful afternoon, one year after his Agni Kai, after the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation had been announced dead to the entire world, Zuko would break out of his cell. 

It began with a simple knock at his metal door. Zuko turned his head listlessly and watched the door from across the room. He stared at the deep scratches in the metal without really seeing anything. The knock came again. Slowly, Zuko stood up and crept up to the door. He waited. 

The door didn’t open. 

Zuko tried to talk, but his voice cut out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What?” he said, faintly. 

A voice came through that was so painfully familiar. An old, gentle voice. “Prince Zuko. It has been too long.”

Zuko found himself almost tripping on his way to clutch at the door. “Uncle?” he rasped. 

The door clicked, and Zuko scrambled back so that the door could open. There his uncle stood, calmly, hands tucked inside his sleeves. Zuko deliriously thought he remembered Iroh being taller. 

“Zuko…” his uncle began, brows furrowed and eyes glistening with an unreadable expression, “I am so sorry!” Zuko watched as his uncle bowed to him. “Had I known— had I any idea, I would have been here sooner!”

“Uncle, I—” Zuko didn’t know what to say. His hands were shaking. 

“Nephew,” his uncle said, righting himself, “the time to strike is now.” He held out his hand. “Come with me. Your destiny does not lie in the dark underbelly of your father’s palace.”

A wild energy overcame him. He found himself reaching for his uncle’s hand, but he stopped himself. He heard the jangle of his handcuffs. He saw the imposing form of his father’s back. “I won’t— I won’t be able to come back— if I left,” he choked out. “He won’t let me come back.”

His uncle reached out and met his thin hand, holding it gently between both of his. “You are worth more than this, Nephew. I know it.” His uncle’s voice was so certain. “The time will come when you will return and all will welcome you. But first we must open ourselves to the world and its pains. It will be tough, Nephew. But it will be living.”

Zuko let out a shaky breath. 

Iroh’s eyes pleaded with him. Zuko took a step forward. He wanted to feel fresh air on his face. Eat hot buns from food stands. Swim in cold rivers. Hear his uncle talk about nothing all day long. He took another step forward. 

Iroh pulled out another key and slotted it into Zuko’s handcuffs. Like once every month, they fell off his wrists. His uncle tightened his grip on Zuko’s hand, and pulled him down a dark hallway.

Zuko found himself looking back into his cell one last time, seeing his claw marks lining every wall of stone, and turned back to his uncle, heart in his throat, fear lining his thoughts. 

* * *

—— 

* * *

Iroh wrapped his arm around Zuko’s back and patted Zuko’s dark cloaked shoulder. His uncle wore a peasant’s shirt and robe, fraying at the seams. No one would look at the old man to Zuko’s left and think of the fearsome Dragon of the West. For that matter, no one would look at the wild, scarred boy next to him as the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. Zuko caught glimpses of himself in the rolling ocean below. His loose frayed black hair. The scar, like a melted brand over his face. Those tired eyes. Zuko did not know who that boy was. Zuko was afraid of who that boy could be. Their boat shook with the rolling waves. 

“You’re a traitor,” Zuko said. 

“After what I have done for you, Nephew.” Iroh bowed his head. “I will never regret it.”

Zuko swallowed heavily. “I’m a traitor, too,” he whispered. 

Iroh said nothing. He squeezed Zuko’s shoulder. 

Something came over him, then. Something like fire, dashing through his veins, making his eerie eyes blaze. Zuko clenched his fists and watched smoke snake through his fingers. “This isn’t the end,” he ground between clenched teeth. “I won’t let it be.”

His uncle smiled at him. “Nephew. I never said it was.”

Their cargo boat continued on towards the colonies, carrying its forbidden cargo. 

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko found a merchant couple in the local healer’s house. A heavyset man laid prone on a cot on the floor, a middle-aged woman kneeling at his side, smoothing over bandages wrapped around his chest with a tender touch. 

Zuko cleared his throat and the woman looked up at him, her eyes bloodshot. “You were attacked by the deserter,” Zuko said, bluntly, and he inwardly winced as the woman flinched and scrambled backwards. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he continued, aiming for comforting and only getting demanding. He tried again, “I’m just trying to find the man who attacked your caravan.”

The woman seemed to gather herself to her feet. “Who are you?” she asked. 

“My name’s Lee,” he said, the word a distaste in his mouth, “I’m a bounty hunter.”

She looked no less nervous as she replied, licking her lips, “He— he attacked us coming down from Peng Nuo, the fishing village, to the north. He hides behind a bend in the road, he used his earthbending to knock our caravan on its side.” She paused, looking down at the man. “Susu tried to fight him,” she whispered. 

An earthbender, Zuko thought to himself. He frowned. “Does he have any weapons?”

The woman nodded furiously. “Yes, he had a sword— a big one.”

He grilled the woman for a description. Apparently, he wore green— _no help there, _Zuko thought— and had short hair. That was all she could tell him. 

Zuko was about to turn and leave, when the woman spoke up again. “You better find him,” she said. 

Zuko looked back at her.

“Find him and make him _hurt_,” she continued, and there were tears in her eyes. 

Zuko felt uncomfortable and quickly turned away. “I will,” he said, and a sinking feeling in his stomach told him that he wasn’t sure if he should have taken this unofficial job. 

Zuko scouted the rest of the small town for more victims of the deserter. He found a woman in the market who claimed a man who said he was Army tried to bully his way into her bed. She told him that said his name was Kang. 

“If I see that bleeding piece of chicken-cow dung again I’ll feed his corpse to the ostrich-horses!” she’d yelled at him. 

Zuko had very quickly retreated.

He checked every inn for man named Kang, and, since there were only two inns in the little village, one above the local bar, the other where Zuko and his uncle stayed, it didn’t take a lot of time. His innkeeper, Yun, was generous enough to check her log for him. She told him there were no men of Kang’s description staying there, which left the bar. 

Which brought Zuko to pinning the barkeep against the wall in the barkeep’s back kitchen. “Just tell me what I need to know!” Zuko demanded. 

“I— I can’t,” the thin man choked out. He had a wispy mustache and a thin beard on his chin. “It’s— it’s confidentiality!” 

“What— is it money?” Zuko ground out, tightening his grip on the barkeep’s robe. “You want money?”

The barkeep squeaked. 

“I’ll pay you five silver right now if you answer!” Zuko ignored how that was all of the money that he had. 

“Okay!” the barkeep choked out, and Zuko dropped him, watching him crumple to the ground. The man took a few deep breaths, gathering himself, before he explained that a man who _could’ve _been Kang _might’ve _stayed there for the past three nights, but he definitely checked out last night. He _might’ve _been planning to skip town. 

Zuko dropped the five silver coins on the ground and walked out, thinking. If Kang skipped town, then the villagers won’t have to worry about him anymore. But if Zuko didn’t find him, he wouldn’t be paid. And he’d already sunk five silver into his search. 

Of course, Zuko, thought quietly to himself, as long as Kang was free, he was going to be harassing someone else, regardless of which village they came from. He moved on, walking toward the north road, where the merchant woman had told him she had been attacked. If the man had found a good ambush spot, it was unlikely that he would give it up any sooner than he had to. 

Half a league out of town, the road took a bend through the forest. The sky was beginning to redden with dusk, and Zuko caught the faint scent of blood. He tracked it into the woods, his step light and soundless, past an overturned cart and upheaved earth, past scorch marks and the heavy stamp of armored boots and the large splayed feet of the komodo rhino. 

He felt like a rock laid in his stomach and paused, blending into the shadows against a tree. The Fire Nation Army had been here. His first thought was for his uncle. The army had found out where he was and was converging on him as Zuko stood miles away like an idiot in the forest! 

Zuko shook himself. No, that couldn’t be it. 

_But if it was_, a voice said, slithering in his mind, _wouldn’t you hate yourself?_

Zuko pushed himself off the tree and tracked the trail deeper into the woods. The scent of blood grew thick, and Zuko heard the labored breaths of a dying man. 

It could only be Kang, Zuko thought, as he neared the burly man, impaled with a sword through his abdomen into an ancient tree. His green tunic was so heavily stained it might as well have been brown. Around the sword, blood oozed down and trickled into the earth. Zuko’s heart sped up, and he paused, ten feet away. The tree laid in a clearing where the earth had been scorched black. 

At first, Kang didn’t seem to notice him. But then, “What—” he breathed out, “You bleeding ash makers back for seconds?” 

Zuko said nothing and walked closer to him, almost in a haze. 

“Stay back, you son of a whore!” the man snarled. Zuko stood a foot away. 

“What happened?” Zuko asked, looking at the sword that ran through him. The handle was wrapped in green, and Zuko thought it must have been Kang’s own sword. He swallowed. “I’m not with the Fire Nation Army,” he said, which was true enough. “I’m from Cao,” which was the name of the small village he’d come from. 

Kang spat at the ground, and it was laced with blood. “I don’t care,” he ground out. “I just want someone to—” he coughed, and more blood dribbled down his chin, “— someone to know what those bastards did.” He took a breath. “I was leaving, skipping town again, and then I hear these animals— some Fire Nation scum was barreling down _my_ road.” 

He was forced to cough again, and Zuko shifted his weight on his feet. “One of them looked fancy too— Some high and mighty general.” Kang took a shaky breath, and his voice came out tremulous, “Oma and Shu, I’d had enough of the Fire Nation, kid. I didn’t want to do anything. I wouldn’t’ve done anything, but— the general guy started talking about how he was going to— going to raze that small town to the ground, ‘cause he was _angry._ _Guanyin. _He was just _angry_.” He did some approximation of a laugh. “Guess some latent Army instincts kicked in, for once in my spirit-damned miserable life.”

Zuko wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling. “So, you fought them,” he said. 

“I did, for all the good it did me.” Kang’s voice was quickly fading. “I think— I think I got one of them. Maybe they won’t go into town, now. Kid— Kid, did I do the right thing? Was that the right thing to do?”

Zuko found that his hands were shaking. _I don’t know,_ he wanted to say. “Yes,” he lied instead. “You protected the town.” Zuko wrapped his hand around Kang’s sword. “I’ll take you back there, now,” and his voice was rough. Zuko had accepted a job to kill this man. It didn’t matter what he’d done. It shouldn’t matter what had happened to him. Still, he asked, “The General’s name? Did you catch it?”

Kang coughed, his breath rasping. “Zhao. They called him Zhao.”

“You’ll be okay, Kang,” Zuko lied, his teeth ground together. He tightened his grip on the sword and ripped it out of the tree it was impaled in, dropping it on the ground and catching the burly man as he slumped. Zuko felt the man’s hot blood stain his shirt as he gently settled him on the ground. Kang had managed to grab a handful of Zuko’s robe and held onto it, his eyes staring up unseeing into the tree canopy. 

“I just wanted to help,” Kang whispered, like a child, and Zuko couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t look at Kang as he bled out on the ground. He couldn’t listen to him whimper. He couldn’t think about dark days lying in a cell, crying where no one could hear him. Zuko grabbed Kang’s hand and ripped it off his robe. He stumbled backwards, nearly tripping on a tree root. 

The Fire Nation. The Fire Nation Army was coming for the village, and his uncle had no idea. 

He left the dying man in the clearing, and ran for the road. 

When he stumbled back into Cao, half an hour later, he was quick to hide himself inside an empty market stall, because he was too late. A man in gold lined armor, black hair tied back into a topknot, with two spikes of black sideburns, sat perched on an armored komodo rhino, surrounded by fifteen other soldiers, five of them mounted. Zuko listened with panicked breath as the soldiers rounded up every villager into the market square, slashing their whips at the ground and shooting up sparks. The leader, who must be Zhao, and a commander, Zuko judged, from the cut of his armor, took glee in forcing the Earth Kingdom citizens to kneel. 

Zuko peered up from his market stall and prayed to Agni that his uncle had some sense and had run away. 

Zuko inwardly groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose, as he saw his uncle, kneeling next to the innkeeper, Yun, and gently patting her shoulder. 

Zhao cleared his throat, and began to speak in a booming, commanding voice, “You dirt people were chosen because the _Avatar_,” he enunciated, “is in your direct path!” He slashed his whip, and Zuko heard a few screams. “If any of you have _seen _him, _harbored_ him, or even _talked _to him, I’ll start by razing your fields, and then your houses, and your _children!” _Zuko heard the tell-tale sound of a fire blooming, and more screams spread through the crowd.

Zuko peered up again, and saw the aftermath of a fire smoking in the air. He stared at his uncle, who seemed impassive. Zuko held back a hiss. He wanted to punch the floor. The Avatar hadn’t been seen in over a hundred years. Zuko almost didn’t believe that an Avatar had ever existed. So why was the Fire Nation trying to find a stupid legend? 

Zhao was clearly upset when none of the villagers stepped forward and claimed that they had spoken to a probable dead man. “Nobody? Nobody has seen him? He takes the form of a _child_!” he declared. “An airbender boy, with blue arrow tattoos!” 

Again, the villagers stayed deathly silent. Zuko could make out the small sound of choked back sobs. Zuko clenched his fists. This wasn’t how the Fire Nation was supposed to act. He felt the conviction in his heart. 

He was about to leap over the market stall, when his uncle stood up. 

“I’ve spoken to the boy,” his uncle said, and Zuko knew he was lying, but he hoped no one else did. “I met him, while out collecting herbs. He never entered the village.”

Zhao demanded that his uncle come closer and explain himself. Zuko wanted to scream. There was no way his uncle could give more details, and there were so many hostages in the square. If Zuko made one wrong move, all a firebender will have to do is bend a fireball into the crowd, and so many would die. 

He breathed out. Zuko would just have to stop the fireball, he decided. He peeked his head back above the stall, and he swore that Iroh caught his eye, and nodded. A weight settled into his heart, and Zuko rested his hand on his swords. 

“Well, you see,” Iroh began, rubbing the back of his head, and then he stepped forward, caught the whip that Zhao had slashed at him, and ripped Zhao, and his whip, straight off his komodo rhino, in one easy motion. As the commander hit the dirt, Zuko sprung up from his hiding place and slashed into the weak spot in the back of a fire soldiers armor before they had even blinked, turning and hacking into the heel of the soldier on his left. 

He kept moving, ducking underneath a spray of fire and coming up to the mounted firebenders at Zhao’s rear. They twisted another stream of fire at him, but Zuko was too fast. He held the fire in the chi in his legs, and leaped, kicking the soldier in the chest and shoving him off the komodo rhino. The man stayed twisted in his reigns and Zuko slammed a fire-hot palm onto the komodo rhino’s side. He heard it hiss in pain, and it reared, dashing off into the crowd, dragging the soldier with it. 

Screaming sounded off in the distance, but that was just the background noise as Zuko sprinted at another mounted soldier. An unmounted soldier got in his way, darting his spear at Zuko’s side. Zuko knocked it aside with his dao, darting in close and slashing at the line between his helmet and chest plate. He felt something connect and a stream of red flicked through the air. A torrent of fire came at his unprotected side and he finished the sword movement, slashing the fire into smoke. 

He thought he heard a cry of disbelief, but he was too focused to pay any attention to it. The other komodo rhino was close and Zuko slashed its side, but the rider held the reigns and kept the animal from fleeing. Zuko cut his reins and saddle and moved to block another spear blow from his right. 

“Nephew!” Iroh called out, and Zuko flicked his eyes in his direction. As Iroh struggled against three soldiers at once, Zhao was building up a fireball to shoot into the crowd, his face twisted and dark. 

Zuko pushed against the spearman, pushing him back and ramming his shoulder into his stomach, sending him to the ground. He ran for Zhao, but three soldiers stood around him, protecting him, readying their fire, their fists outstretched before them. Zuko didn’t hesitate. All three blasts aimed for him, but he shot his own and cut theirs down the middle, flying through the gap and spearing the central firebender through the middle with both swords. Zuko thought he heard some choked words of surprise, and Zhao turned to him, then. Instead of the crowd, the charged fireball aimed straight for his head. 

_Good,_ Zuko thought, ripping out his swords and slashing them in a cross, feeling the heat of the flame curling around him like an oven. 

“You’re a _firebender,” _Zhao snarled, punching streams and curls of fire, advancing on Zuko like he was trying to exterminate a pest. 

Zuko withstood the attacks, dodging and twisting around them, funneling the wayward flame into the ground. Zhao grew closer, and Zuko jumped and kicked out, shooting a stream of fire from his feet that slammed Zhao into the ground. 

Time seemed to stop as Zuko stood, panting, holding a sword under Zhao’s throat. Zhao swallowed, and a thin stream of blood dribbled into the collar of his armor. 

“What kind of firebender,” Zhao hissed, “uses _swords_?”

“The living kind,” Zuko snarled, tightening the grip on his hilt. 

He was about to finish him off _(his prey)_ when his uncle clapped his hand on Zuko’s shoulder. Out of breath, he spoke, “We have done all we can, Nephew. We’ll tie him up.”

Zuko stood perfectly still as Iroh took the rope Zuko had carried and tied it around Zhao’s wrists behind his back.

“You’re making a mistake,” Zhao said, face twisted with malice. 

Zuko swallowed. “Take your soldiers and get out of this town,” he ordered. 

“You think they’ll thank you?” the commander continued, like Zuko hadn’t said anything. “They saw what you _did_. You’re just like us, firebender boy. They hate you. See if they let you out of this town _alive_.”

“Nephew,” his uncle said gently, standing up. There were Fire Nation soldiers still standing and they gathered their commander and slung him over one of the remaining komodo rhinos. One soldier nodded to them, jerkily, and began their retreat back down the road they came from. Zhao’s gaze was powerful and hot, and Zuko felt uneasy as it landed and stayed on Iroh. 

They didn’t wait for the soldiers to disappear into the trees before they began running in the other direction. The crowd had greatly dispersed, but still some people stood hiding behind houses and stalls, watching them. Zuko’s throat felt tight. They were almost at the southern road when a voice called for them to wait. 

Iroh caught Zuko’s arm and they paused, catching their breath. It was Yun, the innkeeper. 

She held out a small bag, and Iroh went forward and pushed it back. “Lady Yun, that is very kind, but we shall be all right.” 

“No,” she said, holding back tears. “It’s not much, but take the money. I know you need it, Mushi.”

Iroh carefully took the bag and slipped it into his pocket. He bowed to her and smiled. Yun smiled back. Then he turned around and joined Zuko on the road. 

They walked in silence for a long time, after that. Zuko felt the stickiness of his robe, and the cloying scent of blood would not leave his mouth. He realized he had been cut along his arm, and there were small burns on his hands. It was fully night, as they walked, and the crescent moon winked at them with a smile. His uncle walked with a limp and it worried him. 

“Ah,” his uncle suddenly exclaimed, and Zuko rushed over to him, grabbing his shoulder and trying to make out his expression in the dim light. Uncle simply continued, “I lost my lotus tile!”

“Uncle,” Zuko growled, letting go of him. 

“It’s a very important piece,” Iroh continued, like Zuko hadn’t heard this spiel a thousand times. “My whole strategy depends on it. Perhaps we will find one, in Hua Li. I hear it is a port town, and filled with merchants. A good place to start again.”

* * *

  
\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FAQ:
> 
> When do you update?  
\- Updates Monthly (Life Willing)
> 
> Will there be relationships?  
\- Canon relationships may show up, and if anything develops, it'll be added to the tags as a minor relationship. Generally, this isn't a story about romance. If anything, expect hints of stuff like Aang/Katara, Sokka/Yue, Suki/Sokka, and May/Zuko, but don't take that as confirmation that any of these relationships will happen, just that certain characters may develop crushes on certain characters. I think who people love is an important aspect of a person's character, and I don't want to take that away from them.


	2. Wanted: Sheng Lei, Known Marauder

About a mile outside of the port town Hua Li, Zuko and his uncle broke off from the road and settled by a nearby river bank, their bodies near collapse but desperately not allowing themselves to show it. Zuko forced himself to sleep in his blood-caked robe, leaning against a tree on the ground, and he woke up a few hours later, watching the sun dip over the horizon, and feeling like he would kill the next person who looked at him wrong. 

His uncle laid a few feet away, snoring. The sight seemed to calm some of the thunder inside his mind, and his brow smoothed out. 

Zuko stood up and stretched, and then left to wander down the river bank, swords sheathed at his side, looking for a secluded place to wash. After a while, he stumbled upon a beautiful inlet, graced by a thundering waterfall. 

Zuko grumpily thought that it was serviceable. 

He had to nearly peel his robe off his skin, and ended up ripping open scabbed wounds along his arm and back. When he finally submerged himself in the water, a rusty cloud formed around him. He wrinkled his nose. Gross. 

As he scrubbed at his robes, trying to pry off the blood stains, Zuko felt the wind shift, tugging on his hair. He stopped, frowning, and looked up. 

The sky darkened with the shape of a great white beast. 

Zuko darted underneath the water and waited, looking up at the sky. The beast flew towards the other river bank, landing on a clear sandy shore. The water shook when its weight hit the ground. When it didn’t immediately charge in his direction, Zuko peaked back above the water, hair splayed around him like a black octopus. 

There were people. 

Three people, to be exact. 

One of them was a girl. 

Zuko was completely naked. 

Putting all the facts together in his head, one nail in the coffin at a time, Zuko decided that he was ready to die. 

Hissing to himself, he struggled to pull on his wet robe, in the water, without making any wild motions, which would draw their eye to him. 

“Hey!” —there was a boy’s voice, and it boomed over the clearing, almost unbearably loud, especially for Zuko’s pounding head— “There’s a girl in the water!” 

Zuko whipped up his head and darted his eyes around, but he didn’t see anyone else. He pushed toward the shore. 

There was a pause, where Zuko could faintly make out another person’s voice, before the boy yelled, “Hey, wait! I’m sorry! Don’t go!”

Zuko reached the shoreline and pulled his robe tighter around his body, dripping water onto the stone, and was about to reach down and grab his pants and undergarments when another gust of wind ripped over his head, making his hair go flying. 

Then the boy stood in front of him, his back straight, like he was at attention. Zuko stared down at him, hunched within his clothes, luckily covered enough so as not to be indecent, and tried to figure out how to incinerate someone with his eyes. The boy wiped his nose before quickly placing his arms back at his sides. 

“Hi!” the boy said. “I’m Aang!”

“I’m going to kill you,” Zuko growled. 

“Wait— you’re a guy!” Aang exclaimed. 

Behind him, across the water, there was another boy’s voice, and he sounded disappointed. “It’s a guy?” 

There was the girl’s voice, soon after, and _she _sounded excited. “It’s a guy!” 

Zuko ground his teeth together. “I’m leaving.”

“Hey, look,” the bald kid said, his voice much softer, “I— uh, guess you were bathing and uh—” he tapped his fingers together, “probably weren’t expecting other people to show up.”

“No,” Zuko growled, narrowing his eyes as he took in the monk-ish look of the boy, the smooth head, the arrow, the orange and yellow clothes, and realized that _this_ was the boy that had nearly caused Zhao to burn that village to the ground. “No, I wasn’t.”

Zuko heard splashing, and turned his head to see the two other people— wearing blue, he noted— walk through the shallow part of the river and over to their side of the shore. 

Zuko had half a mind to grab his pants and swords and make a break for it. 

“Is ambushing random people on the street our _thing, _now?” the blue-clad boy complained, walking up to them. “‘Cause I’d like to have any other thing be our thing. Personally.”

Zuko really wished he wasn’t having this conversation half-naked. 

“We’re not _ambushing_ him,” the girl said, huffing. “He saw us. What if he went and told the Fire Nation where we are, hm? Aren’t _you _the one who’s always suspicious of people?”

“Well, _someone’s _gotta look out for us, Katara,” the boy snapped. “And as the leader—”

“Whoa, who said _you_ were the leader?”

Zuko shuffled closer to his belongings. 

“Guys, guys—” the monk said, waving his arms up and down. “Let’s give the guy some space.”

“I need to go,” Zuko ground out, and finally reached down and grabbed his belongings. He quickly tied on his scabbard, and was about to make a break for the woods, when the boy— a Water Tribe boy, he must be, and around Zuko’s own age— stood in front of him. 

“Look,” the Water Tribe boy started, “we’ve had a real tough couple of weeks, and this crazy side-burns guy keeps trying to cook us with his jerkbending or whatever the nutcase thinks is a fun use of his time, so you’d be doing us a huge favor if you didn’t mention us to anyone in town.” He shuffled his feet, gesturing with one hand, nodding to himself, “Or the Fire Nation. Yeah, especially the Fire Nation.”

If anything, Zuko scowled deeper. That confirmed parts of Zhao’s story. The commander had really been hunting these children. But why? Zuko looked over to the bald boy, with his arrow tattoos. He had never seen anything like it before. He remembered the gust of wind over his head as the boy landed in front of him— and the facts slotted into place. This boy really was an airbender. 

Sozin’s decree was old, and the idea of modern commanders still trying to uphold it made him sick. But still, it made more sense than the other possibility— that this child was the Avatar, the almighty wielder of all four elements. It was stupid. 

_Still_, a voice whispered in his mind, _why would Zhao make the outrageous claim if the simplest one was true? _

Their expectant looks told him that Zuko had to say something. “I never met you. Goodbye.”

As he pushed past the Water Tribe boy, aggressively, Aang waved at him, apologizing again for the trouble. The girl thanked him for keeping their secret. 

When Zuko finally slid into the shadows of the woods, he felt his shoulders slump, and he sighed, leaning heavily back against a tree. 

Behind him, he heard the Water Tribe boy exclaim, “Awkward!”

The airbender asked, cheekily, “Was it?”

Zuko was soon out of earshot. 

He trekked back through the woods and downstream until he found he and his uncle’s temporary camp. His uncle was awake, sitting cross-legged by the shore. When Zuko slid into the clearing, wearing all his clothes, Iroh pushed himself to his feet. 

“Zuko,” Uncle greeted. “I was beginning to worry you had been stolen away by spirits in your sleep!”

“I’m fine, Uncle,” Zuko grumbled. 

“You’re all wet,” Uncle continued, bringing a hand up to stroke his grey beard. 

“I said I’m _fine, _Uncle,” Zuko repeated, turning around and walking back toward the road. He wasn’t sure if his uncle was following him, so he yelled, “Come on!”

* * *

—

* * *

They purchased cheap meat skewers from a street vendor and watched as their paltry funds shrunk nearly in half. The town was much larger than the previous, but oddly deserted, the wide streets populated by only a small trickle of hurried looking people, who kept their eyes down. 

Zuko exchanged a look with his uncle. 

“When the turtle-crab is hit by a wave,” Uncle said. “It knows to stay inside.”

He frowned, “I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I, Nephew.”

They continued their meander through Hua Li, keeping their heads down. Many shops were closed. They passed by the closed door of an unnamed bar, and heard, for the first time since entering the city, the raised sound of many voices yelling over each other. 

After exchanging another look, they pushed inside. To say the bar was full would be an understatement. It was teeming with people, sloshing their drinks, chatting, crying, laughing over one another. As they opened the door, a bell rang, and they gathered a few looks, but nobody seemed to stop them as they walked up the bar and took a seat. 

Zuko’s eyes glittered as he took in the wanted posters nailed against the far wall. His look naturally gravitated toward General Iroh’s wanted poster, on the far left, but it was dirty and smudged, and no one could possibly read the part where it offered 1000 gold coins for his capture or execution, stamped by the Fire Nation royal seal. 

Iroh started chatting with the bartender, a wiry-looking woman with short, spiky hair. 

“Haven’t been to the docks yet, have ya?” Zuko heard the bartender say, and he tuned into their conversation. 

“Is it that obvious?” Uncle smiled. 

She snorted. “It’s a good thing you got off the street when you could. Fire Navy’s parked at the docks.”

Zuko’s heart stuttered, and he gripped the table. 

“Makes the port dangerous, these days,” the bartender continued. “Normally, it’s for different reasons.” She jerked her head towards the bounties along the wall. “Little bit of a pirate’s cove, down by the docks. _Sheng Lei,_” she pointed to a poster of a man in a large brimmed hat with long grey hair. “Toughest bastard as they come. Wanted by the Earth Kingdom _and _the Fire Nation. Now that’s pretty rare.”

“It is,” Zuko agreed. 

The bartender raised an eyebrow at him. “And who’re you?”

“Lee,” Zuko said, curtly. “I’m a bounty hunter.”

The bartender left to go fill another man’s drink, and when she came back, she said, solemnly, “I’ve heard of you. Wasn’t expecting what I saw, is all.” 

Zuko clenched his jaw. He nodded toward the poster. “What the deal with the pirate?”

The bartender gathered a glass, and began to pour from a bottle against the far wall. “You think you’re good enough to take him down, friend?”

“Yes,” Zuko said, as if it was obvious. 

The bartender gave him a shrewd look over her shoulder. “Hm. Maybe you can.” She slid the drink over to Iroh, who looked surprised but delighted. “But do you want to?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“That Sheng Lei gots hands in many pockets, my friend. Why do you think he’s been free so long?” She shook her head. “But turn him in, little hunter. There’s an Earth Army outpost near the city center. I’m sure they’ll shell out your coin there.”

“Thanks,” Zuko grumbled, and went to stand up. 

“Nephew,” Iroh warned, calmly holding his drink. “Some would not be so eager to poke the scorpion-bees nest, so soon after being stung.”

“Stay here.” Zuko gently rested his hand on his hilts. “I’ll be back in a few hours, and then we’ll sleep in a bed tonight.” 

Iroh leveled a calm look at him, and Zuko didn’t meet his eyes. “Be safe,” Uncle said. 

“I know,” Zuko said quietly. 

* * *

——

* * *

A thin man in green with a long face, mustache, and hooped earrings, smiled as Zuko approached the plank leading onto the junk ship, a huge wooden boat with bright red sails. Down the pier to Zuko’s right, he could make out the towering metal form of a Fire Navy cruiser. An Empire-class battleship. A ship for a very high ranking member of the Navy. “You, sir, look like a man well-traveled!” the green-clad man called out. “Why not spend your time perusing our wondrous boutique? I promise you won’t be disappointed!” He swooped out his arms, gesturing at the plank. 

Zuko watched the thin man’s balance. He was light on his feet. The man knew how to fight, and Zuko suspected every man on the ship would be the same. Zuko said nothing as he stepped over the plank and onto the ship. 

“Enjoy your stay!” the green-clad man barked after him, almost nervously. Zuko wondered what he was nervous about. 

Idly, Zuko counted the men, lingering on the deck. Six, that he could see, slouched over boxes, idly throwing dice. He counted two spearmen. One of them caught his eye, a heavyset man with a topknot, and sneered, “What’re _you_ looking at?”

Zuko turned away, and said nothing.

The hold was like a barrel, lit by hanging lanterns. At the back, Zuko saw a doorway, and there was an empty table, with a chair tucked behind it. Shelves lined each side of the room, filled with odd pieces of decor. There was an empty coat rack, and a table made to hold various types of scrolls, like you’d find stationed with messenger hawks. Zuko stared at an odd statue with red-ruby eyes, and thought that his uncle would love it. 

“See anything you like?” a voice growled, and Zuko stopped himself from jumping. The man had snuck up on him. No one did that. 

Zuko slowly turned around, and looked up at the older man, his face heavily lined, his iguana parrot calmly perched on his shoulder. It was Sheng Lei. He was a broad man, with a sword tied to his side, and Zuko knew from the man’s narrowed eyes that Sheng Lei wasn’t stupid. Zuko knew what image Zuko gave off. He looked like a homeless thief. A peasant who could barely afford rice. Zuko couldn’t buy a single thing in this boutique, and the pirate knew it. 

If Zuko tried to take him down now, in this enclosed space, he’d be surrounded in seconds. So, Zuko clenched his jaw, and said, “I’ve heard of you. You’re Sheng Lei.”

“You have, now?” the pirate said, subtly shifting his stance. He was wary of Zuko. Not good. 

Zuko tried to make himself look less dangerous. He relaxed his shoulders. He clenched his hands in front of him. He needed to say something disarming, something that would make Sheng Lei lower his guard. “I want to join your crew,” Zuko blurted out, and the words were out of his mouth before he’d even considered them. 

“I don’t take on half-grown farmer boys,” Sheng Lei snapped, and Zuko watched as the pirate seemed to relax, almost dismissing him. “How old are you, fifteen?”

“Sixteen,” Zuko said, because it was true, and he wanted to keep the pirate off-guard. 

“Sixteen,” the man huffed, “You’re practically still at your mother’s teat. You think you could keep up with us, boy?”

“I think I could try,” he said, and, too late, Zuko realized that he had spoken with too much confidence. 

The pirate slammed him against the wall, and Zuko made no move to resist, face calm as Sheng Lei shouted spittle into his face, “You think you could _try? _You cheeky little whore’s child, I’ll find your mother and—”

Someone cleared their throat. 

Sheng Lei and Zuko both slowly turned their heads to see three children, two in blue, and one in orange, with a lemur curled around his skinny shoulders. 

Sheng Lei stepped back, and used his grip on Zuko’s robe to drag him across the cabin and force him to sit down on the chair behind the small table. The pirate gave him a warning look. _Don’t move. I’m not done with you._

Zuko sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. He clenched his jaw, and tried not to show his panic on his face. The Water Tribe people and the airbender were here. 

Zuko listened as the pirate captain greeted the three of them. He obviously thought that they were exotic enough to be sporting some coin. Nobody saw the Water Tribe this deep into the Earth Kingdom, and nobody else in the world looked like the airbending boy. They were strange travelers, and often strange travelers were rich. 

Zuko didn’t think that was the specific case with _these _strange travelers, but the pirate didn’t see that. 

He felt their eyes flick to him often, as they glanced around the hold. He refused to meet their gazes. Sheng Lei leaned against the doorframe to Zuko’s left, a few feet away, watching the room. 

Zuko _definitely_ couldn’t attack him now. The children would get in the way. 

He watched as the girl brought up a blue scroll to the man, marked with the water symbol. The Water Tribe girl asked how much it was. The pirate curtly responded that it wasn’t for sale, and if it was, it would be for 200 gold pieces. 

Zuko saw the exact moment when the pirate realized the travelers were poor. 

The girl returned the scroll to its place on its shelf, and looked around at the other odd objects lying around the hold. Zuko lost interest in her and saw the Water Tribe boy ooh at an array of Water Tribe weaponry. 

Then, the girl walked up to the table in front of Zuko and said, “Hello!”

“Don’t talk to him,” the pirate captain snapped from Zuko’s left, “He’s just the cabin boy.” Zuko glanced back at Sheng Lei. He’d said the lie smoothly, not a feather out of place. Zuko found himself unwillingly reminded of his sister. 

“Guess what?” the girl said hotly. “This may surprise you, but cabin boys can still talk.” 

The pirate smirked, his voice growling, “And if I said _no_, little girl?”

For a second, Zuko watched the girl hesitate, and the air filled with tension. Then she clenched her fist. “Are you going to stop me?” she asked, eyes bright. 

Zuko caught the rage in the pirate’s eyes and stood up. “I’ll talk to her, _boss.” _Sheng Lei directed his rage at Zuko instead. Good, he thought. “What’s it going to hurt?” Zuko taunted. 

Sheng Lei’s fists promised a world of pain, and Zuko smiled in a way that was less of a smile and more of a bearing of his teeth. 

That’s when the Water Tribe boy grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her back out of the hold. “Hey, really, thanks for— uh— the curios,” he waved, his smile strained. “Love those curios.” The girl looked back at him with a glare. She was blocked by the airbender, who stood in front of her and helped back her out of the room. 

“Nice hat!” the airbender yelled, and the three of them slipped out of sight. 

Zuko and Sheng Lei stood in dead silence for a long moment. 

Zuko finally coughed. “Um. I think that girl—”

“—took my waterbending scroll,” the pirate finished. 

The next moments happened very fast. Sheng Lei darted through the hold and came out on the deck. “Get them!” he screamed, pointing towards the dock. Zuko could barely make out the shapes of the six crewmembers stumbling to their feet through the doorway. Half of them had already jumped over the side of the ship by the time Zuko had dashed forward and grabbed the top of the doorway, using his momentum to swing his feet square into the center of Sheng Lei’s back.

Sheng Lei crashed into the ground and tumbled a few feet, groaning. Zuko landed gracefully on the ground and unsheathed his swords, holding them low and at the ready. 

The other half of the crewmembers didn’t bother jumping to shore. They ran straight at Zuko. A small man wearing blue threw out his weighted rope, and it twisted around the hilt of Zuko’s left sword. With a tug, Zuko felt the sword ripped straight out of his hand. He snarled, and parried a katana strike from another man, heavyset, with a red bandana. 

Sheng Lei pushed himself to his feet. 

Zuko suddenly heard the girl’s voice from the pier, “We can’t just leave him there!” 

_Yes, you can! _Zuko thought angrily to himself, twisting out of the way of two slashes from a shirtless man’s dual kama. In a flash, he stoked the inner fire in his legs, and jumped close to the shirtless man, jamming the hilt of his one sword into the man’s nose with enough power to send him flying five feet backwards. 

“What the _fuck_ are you?” Sheng Lei growled, readying his sword. 

Zuko dropped to the ground and rolled out of the way of the small blue-shirted man’s rope. He felt himself roll onto his own sword and quickly grabbed it, kicking at the katana man as he came too close, snagging the man’s ankle and forcing him to the ground. 

He jumped to his feet, panting. Before him, there was only Sheng Lei and the small man who stayed far away from the battle. Zuko could do this. Zuko could take him out. It was just them, now. Man on man.

Zuko felt a sudden foreboding whoosh of air. 

“I’ve got you,” came the airbender’s boyish voice, far too close to his ear, and then Zuko found himself thrown over the airbender’s shoulder and then he was flying, the wind curling through his hair. 

The sensation of flying was so familiar to Zuko that he didn’t even realize what was wrong until they landed. The airbender dropped him to the ground, keeping a firm grip on Zuko’s forearm, and yelled, “Run!” 

Zuko felt himself being pulled along, a step behind the small boy as they rushed down the eerily empty streets. After turning a corner, they saw the three crewmen pursuing the two Water Tribe people. 

“Oh, no you don’t!” the airbender warned, and slashed with his staff. 

A wall of wind hit the three of them from behind and Zuko watched as they slammed into the ground. The airbender kept on running, and so did Zuko. The airbender cheerfully jumped over the fallen pirates, while Zuko made sure he slammed his boot into every one of their heads. 

They caught up to the Water Tribe people, who quickly ushered them around a corner and together they slipped down a deserted alleyway. 

In silence, they stood panting, eyeing each other. Zuko ripped his arm out of the airbender’s grip and stepped away, sheathing his swords. 

It looked like the airbender was about to speak, and Zuko found himself and the Water Tribe boy giving the bald kid the same sharp look. Zuko met the Water Tribe boy’s eyes, startled, but then quickly looked away. 

Tensely, they waited five minutes. Zuko pressed his back against the wall, watching the alleyway entrance. When he finally saw the three pirates limp on by, without turning in their direction, he finally allowed himself to relax.

“They’re gone,” Zuko grumbled.

“Finally,” the girl exclaimed, wiping her brow.

Zuko whipped around and gave her a deadly look. “Finally?” he snarled, finding himself advancing on her. “_You_ did this,” he pointed, a single sharp motion. 

“Hey,” the Water Tribe boy intervened, physically placing himself between the two of them. “We just saved your hide in there, man, so don’t you start accusing my _sister_ of doing stuff she clearly didn’t do.”

“Clearly didn’t do?” Zuko snarled, and he was angry, beyond angry, and he turned it all on the Water Tribe boy. “She stole from the most dangerous frosting pirate in the Earth Kingdom _and _the Fire Nation, you Water Tribe _peasant. _You tell me whether she _clearly didn’t do something!” _

“Who’re you calling a Water Tribe _peasant_, you fancy-footed _cabin boy_?” The Water Tribe boy yelled back. Zuko swore that the boy was about to throw a punch, and readied himself to block it. 

“Stop!” the airbender yelled. “Everyone just stop!” He twirled his staff, and Zuko felt himself buffeted by a curtain of air, shoving him away from the Water Tribe boy. 

“Katara,” the bald boy said solemnly. “Did you— did you steal something?”

Everyone turned to the girl, who swallowed uncomfortably. “Maybe?” she said, in the tone that meant yes, she absolutely had. 

“I don’t have time for this,” Zuko growled, and he was so angry that he didn’t care what he saying anymore. “I had him— I had that piece of dirt in my _claws!_” Zuko felt himself punch the wall, but he was so used to hiding his fire that not even a spark shot out. “You stupid air-headed _monk!_” 

“Eep,” the airbender said. “Me?”

Zuko advanced on the boy and picked him up by the front of his cloak, feeling the boy’s feet kicking in the air. “Why did you kidnap me?” Zuko yelled at him.

“Uh, ‘cause you were in trouble?”

“_I wanted to be in trouble!_” Zuko screamed, and he wasn’t sure if he had completely managed to hide the smoke coming off his palms. 

The Water Tribe boy grabbed the back of the airbender’s cloak and Zuko let him pull the monk away from him. 

“Okay,” the Water Tribe boy started, semi-calmly, after a tense second. “There might be some misunderstandings, here.”

“Oh, really?” Zuko snapped, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

He was so tired. 

The Water Tribe girl looked up from studying the ground. “I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I’m sorry, Aang, Sokka. I’m sorry—” she looked at Zuko, “—we don’t even know your name. I’m sorry anyways. But we needed that scroll.” The girl looked solemnly between her brother and the monk. “Aang needs to learn waterbending as soon as possible. Roku said so. You know we can’t afford to let something like this pass us by.”

Zuko felt his blood run cold like he’d plunged into an icy lake. He tuned out the rest of their words, their apologies, their questions. 

_Aang needs to learn waterbending— _

_—to learn waterbending— _

_—waterbending— _

Zuko felt his hands grab his hair. There was no way. 

But why would Zhao have lied?

“Hey, uh, buddy?” There was a hand waving in front of Zuko’s face. “You with us?” It was the Water Tribe boy. Zuko refused to use his name. 

Zuko looked up into concerned blue eyes. He quickly looked away, finding the monk. The monk who was the Avatar. 

“Hey, _you,_” he rasped. 

The monk pointed to himself, questioning. 

“Tell me,” Zuko growled, and his words felt slow, lethargic. “Are you the Avatar?”

The monk twiddled his thumbs. “That’s me,” he smiled, like it was no big deal. 

Zuko needed to find his uncle. 

“I need to go,” Zuko found himself saying, his back already turning to them. 

And then a thought occurred to him. Zuko knew that it wasn’t a _nice _thought. But, then again— Zuko was not nice. 

Zuko was a monster. 

Zuko’s voice was oddly quiet as he said, “But let’s meet up somewhere. The waterfall.”

“You’re always in such a rush,” the girl said, and there was a smile in her words. Zuko didn’t want her smile. “Can we at least have your name?”

Zuko took a step forward, and was about to take another when a wild abandon came over him. “It’s Zuko,” he said, for the first time in a very long time. 

He didn’t wait for their response, and simply ran out of the alleyway. 

* * *

—

* * *

After a paltry dinner and washing the dishes in the bar’s kitchen, long after his uncle had finished his last Pai Sho game, Zuko, armed with another length of rope, stolen from the bar’s back storage, took his uncle out of the port town and back into the surrounding forest, tracing the river upstream. It was fully night, and the moon slowly inched into a tinier sliver. 

“These are quite some lengths for privacy, Zuko,” Uncle hummed, but he didn’t seem to mind trekking through the woods in the middle of the night. Zuko appreciated that about him.

Zuko idly traced the bark of a tree. “Do you remember what Zhao said, back there? About the person he was looking for?”

“The Avatar,” Uncle said gravely. 

“He wasn’t lying.” Zuko clenched his fist, and he let it catch flame, cradling it in his palm. “I met him. He’s traveling with a couple of Water Tribe children.”

“You met him?” Uncle gasped. His tone was oddly unreadable as he asked, “What did you think of him?”

Zuko shrugged. “He’s a child.”

“A powerful child.”

Zuko grunted noncommittally. 

Iroh held out his arm and they both stopped in place, the sound of the river a trickle by their ear. “What are you thinking, Nephew?”

“I’m thinking,” Zuko swallowed nervously. “That this might be just what we’ve been waiting for.”

His uncle pulled his arm away. When he spoke, it was almost to himself, “The times are changing.” Zuko could catch the faint hint of a smile on his uncle’s face from the fire cupped in his hands, as his uncle once again turned to face him. “Then I assume we are not out for some firebending practice?”

“Sorry, Uncle,” Zuko said. “But I’m going to kidnap the Avatar.”

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko and Iroh hid in the trees as a wooden ship sailed up the river they were following like an engorged river serpent. Zuko knew it had blood red sails, but no lanterns were lit to prove it. 

“It’s Sheng Lei,” Zuko told his uncle. “He’s after the Water Tribe girl.”

“Looks like we were not the only ones out on a midnight jaunt,” Iroh hummed. 

“What’s that saying you use, Uncle?” Zuko growled, his blood pumping in his ears. “Let’s stab two birds with one sword.”

“So close,” Iroh whispered encouragingly. “Nearly had it.”

They ran to keep up with the thunderous junk ship. Zuko caught glimpses of figures flitting around on the deck. He thought he heard the squawk of an iguana-parrot. Zuko knew what the pirates were trying to do. They were outfitted for stealth, trying to ambush the Avatar under the cover of night. Unfortunately, that was exactly what Zuko was trying to do, too. He couldn’t blow Sheng Lei’s cover without blowing his own. 

“Either we get to them first or we’ll be playing catch-up all night,” Zuko hissed. 

“Run on ahead, Zuko,” Iroh panted. “I will watch the ship, and once they get close enough, I’ll burn their sails.”

At which point, if Zuko was fast enough, stealth wouldn’t matter anymore. Zuko clapped his uncle on the shoulder and put on an extra burst of speed. 

The inlet by the waterfall was peaceful during the night. Zuko saw the great white beast slumbering, with tiny forms curled on the ground near it. One form was not sleeping, however. 

The Water Tribe girl was a waterbender. He watched her from the shadows as she brought up a small stream of water and tried to flick it like a whip. The water did not seem to be cooperating. He heard her soft groan of frustration. 

The entire scene made him ache, and he wished he wasn’t horribly reminded of his own training.

_Useless. _

_Can’t even bend a candle. _

_Can’t you do anything, you stupid boy?_

Zuko snuck up behind the girl and wrapped one arm around her neck and the other over her mouth. “Don’t scream,” he hissed. 

He felt the girl tense, every muscle in her body trembling. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Zuko continued. “But if you scream I’m going to knock you out.” 

When she didn’t try to say anything, Zuko slowly took his hand off her mouth. 

“Zuko?” she whispered. 

“I have nothing against you or your brother,” Zuko said, and he started dragging the girl towards the sleeping giant beast. For a second, she struggled against him, but then she quickly just started walking with him. “But you have something that I need.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered. 

“You will,” he said. 

She suddenly jerked her elbow into his stomach and Zuko involuntarily loosened his grip around her neck, grunting. Then she slammed her head back into his face and Zuko lost his grip on her entirely, feeling her slip away. Zuko stumbled back a step, thinking that he really should have seen that coming, watching as her foot caught against a rock and she tumbled to the ground. 

Zuko reached up and felt his nose, coming away with a droplet of blood. 

“This is a waste of time,” he snapped, and decided to ignore the girl entirely. He tried to jog past her, and had only managed a step before he felt a wave of water curl around his foot, and he lost his balance and fell. 

Zuko pushed himself up off the ground and said, “You’re really starting to annoy me.”

The girl slashed her hand and the water around Zuko’s feet turned to ice. “You’re really starting to piss me off!” she yelled. 

Zuko snarled, but before he could say anything, he had to blink rapidly as the river became engulfed in flame, the girl becoming a small shadow in front of the raging torrent of the pirate’s junk boat. The girl spun around and Zuko wasted no time punching flame down at his feet while her back was turned, hearing the ice crack and break.

He ran the last distance to the sleeping forms of the Water Tribe boy and the Avatar, but they were no longer sleeping. 

“Zuko?” the Water Tribe boy said, rubbing at his eyes. “Can you please tell me what the ever-living hog monkey is going on?” 

Zuko ignored him and dashed towards the Avatar, who stood, staring at the burning ship, scratching his head. He grabbed the boy by his cape and ordered, “Come with me _now._”

“W-Where are we going?” the boy said, allowing himself to be dragged along as the Water Tribe boy yelped and picked up his boomerang. 

_The Fire Nation, _Zuko wanted to say. _My father. _

That’s when Zuko realized that they were surrounded by pirates. 

“Loose!” came Sheng Lei’s voice, and Zuko heard the sound of a spring-loaded crossbow, but no bolt came out, only a weighted net. He felt the thick rope encircle him and the Avatar, and it brought him to the ground with the small monk boy practically tied on top of him. 

A morbid part of Zuko’s mind quickly informed him that, technically, he had captured the Avatar. He had just accidentally captured himself as well. 

Zuko couldn’t ever do anything right. 

He heard two more shots of what he presumed were nets and the pained grunt of the Water Tribe boy. 

The pirates began to laugh at them, then— ugly, sharp laughs. One of them, a heavy-set man with a red bandanna, dragged over a net with the Water Tribe girl inside it and shoved her down to Zuko’s left. He heard her pained grunt as well. 

“You leave Katara alone!” the Avatar yelled. 

Sheng Lei stepped forward, towering over them, his face entirely in shadow. “You think you’re in any place to make demands, boy?”

The Avatar started to struggle, whipping around his sharp elbows and nearly kneeing Zuko in the crotch. “Stay frosting still!” Zuko growled. 

Sheng Lei kicked the Avatar in the side, and Zuko felt the breath go out of him. 

“Where’s - my - waterbending - scroll?” the pirate demanded, enunciating each word like it was its own sentence. Zuko saw that a spear was pointed down at the Water Tribe boy and girl, both of whom were strangely silent.

Zuko wondered if his uncle was okay. 

He flinched as a loud bellow filled the clearing, the sound almost a physical presence. It was the great white beast, who slammed down its front two paws and whipped its tail down at the ground, sending out such a huge cloud of air that every pirate was pushed back ten feet. Zuko clenched his eyes shut, dirt and water droplets swirling through the air. 

Never one to shirk an opportunity, Zuko grabbed a piece of the net and turned it to ash in seconds, urging the flame to catch and spread along the other strands. 

“Is it hot in here?” the Avatar murmured, and then he turned his head on Zuko’s chest and saw the fire. “Oh, monkey feathers,” he whispered, eyes widening. 

Zuko unceremoniously shoved the boy into the opening and the monk rolled and coughed into open air. 

“Someone stab the thing!” Zuko heard one of the pirates say, followed by a couple jeers, as a spear was thrown in the great beast’s direction. 

“Appa, no!” the Avatar called, and he bent his knees and twisted his arms into a fluid upward motion, the wind catching the spear and directing it off course. 

Zuko crawled out of the remnants of the net himself, and he was so furious at Sheng Lei that he didn’t even bother with the Avatar. 

“I’m going to kill that man,” Zuko muttered to himself, staggering to his feet and seeing the pirate captain retreating back behind his crewmembers. “Oh no. Not today.” He pulled out his swords and struck out viciously, cutting the small blue-robed pirate from shoulder to hip, and catching and twisting the katana out of red bandanna’s hands. 

Another pirate swung his kama at Zuko’s back and he felt it connect, felt the blade dig deep into his shoulder, and clenched his teeth, stopping himself from crying out. Zuko didn’t see what had happened to that man, but he didn’t attack again, and Zuko kept pushing forward, putting the injury far from his mind. He held the fire deep in his stomach and let the flame curl into all of his muscles. If his sword smoked as it sunk into flesh, if sparks danced along his back, then Zuko did not notice them. 

At his side, Zuko caught sight of the Water Tribe boy as he slammed his club into a thin pirate’s head. He snarled. _He_ was going to get to Sheng Lei first. The pirate captain was _his _bounty, not the stupid Water Tribe boy’s. 

Sheng Lei pushed the crewmember standing in front of him away, barking, “This one is _mine_.”

Zuko bared his teeth and dived at him. 

Sheng Lei blocked both of his dao with his scimitar and Zuko pressed against him, shifting his weight to add more pressure on the other man’s sword. But the pirate was strong, stronger than Zuko, and Zuko was the one who broke first, leaning back and enticing the pirate to take the opening he’d created. Sheng Lei didn’t, and that was how Zuko knew he was good, maybe even as good as Zuko. 

Zuko didn’t think he could beat the man with swords alone. 

So, he faked a slash to his right, all the while twisting his leg up into an arc of bright orange fire, cutting straight across Sheng Lei’s abdomen. The pirate was too shocked to dodge, and the flame seared deep into his stomach. 

Zuko got a dark satisfaction out of hearing him scream. Burn wounds were painful, after all. He would know. 

Sheng Lei staggered away from him, dropping his sword and ripping off his flaming shirt, and Zuko wasn’t going to let him get away. Not this time. He advanced on him, slashing at Sheng Lei’s leg and forcing him to his knees. 

Zuko held his sword to the pirate’s throat and frowned. Without his hat, Sheng Lei looked older, his face more lined. It reminded him of his uncle. In the red light of the burning ship, Zuko saw Sheng Lei’s crew flee in the night, limping figures fading into the darkness of the forest. 

“Your crew is abandoning you,” Zuko said. 

“Aye,” Sheng Lei rasped. “Never thought they wouldn’t.”

“There’s no loyalty?” Zuko frowned.

“You’d say that, wouldn’t you, Fire Nation?” Sheng Lei looked like he had found Zuko’s dark secret. 

Zuko scoffed. “Do you think you scare me, pirate?” 

Sheng Lei smiled wider. “I think you’re scared all the time, little boy.”

Zuko hated his smile. “Shut up,” he snarled, and he kneed the pirate so hard in the face that the pirate dropped to the ground, unconscious. Probably, Zuko thought, seeing the blood spill profusely out of the man’s broken nose. 

Zuko finally turned around and surveyed the area. 

The three children stood across from him, alone. The Water Tribe girl had a stream of water curled around her fingers. The Water Tribe boy pointed his club at him. The Avatar stood calmly, holding his staff. 

“I _knew _there was something weird about you!” the Water Tribe boy exclaimed. “Zuko is a _Fire Nation _name!”

“You’re a firebender!” the girl yelled, her hands poised threateningly. “You were going to kidnap Aang!”

“Well,” the Avatar said, reasonably, “he only said he was going to take me somewhere. He could’ve just been warning us about the pirates. He did fight alongside us, remember?”

Zuko started walking towards them. 

“Hey, stop where you are!” the Water Tribe boy warned, nervously.

Zuko didn’t stop.

The Water Tribe boy caught both of his dao on his club. The other boy grunted, trying to hold back the full brunt of Zuko’s swing, and in a single twist, Zuko had him spilled out on the ground. 

The Water Tribe girl shot a whip of water at him, but Zuko was ready for it, and punched a torrent of fire into her direction. She yelped, the water evaporating into the air, and the girl jumped back.

Then Zuko stood in front of the Avatar, who tightly gripped his staff, looking up at him. “What do you want?” the Avatar asked.

It was such a simple question. 

“I want my _name _back!” Zuko screamed, and swung his swords. 

The Avatar slipped backward just in time, Zuko’s dao slicing a thin line through his cape. He twisted his staff, and a bubble of air burst into Zuko’s chest, but he was ready for it, now, and tried to brace himself against the ground. 

“Guys, c’mon!” the Avatar yelled, and the three of them began running toward the great beast in the distance. Zuko chased after them, but the Avatar’s continued blasts of air slowed him down just enough that by the time the monk yelled, “Yip yip!” Zuko was too late. 

The great beast flew over his head and into the dark night sky. 

Zuko found himself wishing that it was a moonless night, but the crescent moon shone down, taunting him. 

Zuko realized that he was tired, and he fell to his knees. 

His uncle found him like that, a while later. 

“I have tied up your pirate for you, Nephew,” his uncle said, gently patting his shoulder. 

He grunted. 

“Let’s go back to town,” Iroh said, and helped Zuko to his feet, slipping Zuko’s arm around his shoulders. “This old man could do with a nice soft bed. The lovely Chae Won said we could stay in her spare room.”

“I'm tired,” Zuko mumbled, and together they limped along the river. 

* * *

—-


	3. Wanted: Jet, Suspected Gang Leader

Sokka crossed his arms and gazed off between the trees, squinting into the distance where the boughs blended together into one solid haze. Oddly quiet, Katara handed her bedroll off to Aang, who pulled it up onto Appa’s saddle. 

“Ready to go?” Aang chirped, kicking his feet. 

That was the question, wasn’t it?

“I’ve been thinking,” Sokka spoke up, holding up a hand, “and I don’t think we should be using Appa to get around as much as we have.” 

“What?” Aang drew out. “Why?” 

Sokka flicked his hand at the giant bison. “How _else _do you think Zhao and the Fire Nation keeps finding us? He’s just too noticeable.” 

“Appa’s not too noticeable,” Katara sniped, and Sokka held in a sigh. Maybe it was because something was bothering her. Sokka didn’t know. Maybe it was the same thing that was bothering Sokka. 

Either way, Sokka thought, let’s see her disagree with facts. “He’s a gigantic fluffy monster with an arrow on his head!” 

Appa groaned, complaining, showing off his neat rows of giant blunt teeth. Never gonna get used to that, Sokka thought. “It’s okay, buddy,” Aang consoled, rubbing the bison’s head. “He’s just jealous that he doesn’t have an arrow.”

Sokka sighed. “You’re missing the point. The point is that we’ve had way too many close calls, and my instincts are telling me that we need to do something about it.”

“Do your _instincts,” _Katara mocked, “have something to do with how you’re _scared_ of Zuko?”

Sokka clenched his fists, turning to face her, and she turned to face him. “Yeah, Katara?” he said, voice tight. “You really want to bring him up? I didn’t see _you _faring any better against him than _I_ did.” 

Sokka watched his sister’s face become shadowed with anger. “We beat Zhao already countless times,” she snapped, “What’s one more firebender?”

“He’s not _just _a firebender, Katara, and you know it!” Sokka yelled, stabbing at her with his finger. “You wouldn’t shut up about him after we met him, some weird mysterious scarred guy, and you were just so convinced that he needed our help! Well, _newsflash_, Katara!” Sokka swept out his arm. “Not every hot guy you meet is a damsel in distress! Sometimes, they’re crazy scarred swordsmen who want to capture Aang for who _knows_ what reason. Oh, right, because they’re _literally insane!”_

“He’s just one guy, Sokka!” she yelled back. “We’re never gonna see him again, so what does it matter?”

“One guy that nearly killed Aang!” 

There was a ringing silence in the clearing. Katara moved her mouth like she wanted to say something, but nothing would come out. Guiltily, Sokka crossed his arms. 

“Guys,” Aang said quietly. Sokka and Katara both turned to look at him. “You don’t need to worry about me.” He slid off Appa, his cape billowing in his own airstream. “I know that whatever comes after us, we can deal with it together.” 

“Aw, Aang,” Katara said, and she wrapped the boy in a half-hug. 

Sokka wasn’t so easily appeased. “My instincts are telling me that we’re gaining enemies faster than we can outrun them.” He stuck out his hand and started counting on his fingers. “What’s gonna happen if Zhao and Zuko come at us at the same time? I know we’ve gotten away from Zhao before, but he’s got the backing of an entire nation. Every single ship, every single weapon that the Fire Nation has to offer, he can use. He’s got the numbers, especially when it comes to a straight fight. If he corners us, and we can’t escape, I don’t want to think about what would happen.” Sokka shook his head. 

“And now your coveted _instincts _are telling you to not use Appa, the best escape route that we have?” Katara asked, indignant. 

“My instincts are saying that they’re _expecting_ us to use Appa!”

“So, in the meantime, we’re gonna walk slowly through the forest? Oh yeah, not a target at all!” Katara threw up her hands. 

“I’m trying to do what’s best for us, Katara!” Sokka turned to Aang, who looked like he was about to retreat behind his bison. “Aang!”

“Aang!” Katara called, at almost the exact same time. 

Aang had the distinct look of an otter-penguin stuck in a snow floe. 

“You agree with me, right?” Sokka and Katara demanded at nearly the same time. 

Aang smiled nervously. “Well,” he said, diplomatically. “Has anyone seen Momo?”

Sokka looked around the clearing, and realized that he couldn’t see the lemur anywhere. 

Katara’s brows bent in worry. “Let’s go look for him.”

As Aang tried to speed off in a direction, Sokka poked him in his fleeing back. “Don’t try to dodge the question.”

Aang looked back at him sheepishly. “Me, dodge your question?” He suddenly sped off ahead of them. “Never!” he called back. 

They began walking, or, in Aang’s case, jumping and floating, in an ever-enlarging circle around their campsite, stepping over fallen logs and broken branches, pushing through low-hanging boughs, occasionally calling out the lemur’s name. Sokka never thought that he would get so used to walking through forests. It was hard to think that he’d never been in one over a month ago. 

Sokka didn’t realize that he had fallen behind the group when he said, somberly, “I’m worried about Zhao.” His sister and Aang sent him curious looks over their shoulders. “We all saw his ship back at that port. He’s got to be close by, and it worries me,” Sokka frowned. “Where was he? What is he doing? What is he planning?”

No one could say anything to that. 

They eventually found Momo, caught in a tree-trap, suspended fifty feet in the air. Aang was quick to rush over to the lemur and bring the trap to the ground, and they worked together to open it. Aang then jumped up to bring the other two traps down, which _of course he did_, but Sokka threw his boomerang, cutting them both loose in no time at all. 

Sokka watched the traps hit the ground, releasing two hog monkeys, but Sokka didn’t care about the potential food items. He cared about the traps, because something about them was bothering him. They seemed suspiciously strong. Bending down, he didn’t find a single crack. “This is Fire Nation steel,” he announced, his heart catching in his throat. “Let’s get out of here, right now.”

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko was washing dishes in the bar’s kitchen even though his uncle had ordered him not to move for the rest of the day. His uncle had said that his injury was serious, and Zuko needed ample time for bed rest. 

“Mushi told me I’d find you here,” the wiry, spikey-haired bartender, Chae Won, said, sliding open the door to the kitchen with some glasses, which she set next to the sink. “Aren’t you rich now, little hunter? What’re you doing?”

Zuko felt oddly embarrassed. “Nothing,” he said, putting away the last glass. 

She leaned back against the counter. “Good job on that Sheng Lei catch. You’re starting to build up a bit of reputation in the Earth Army, Lee.”

He would have shrugged, but shrugging was a very painful motion for him, currently. “What do you want?” he snapped instead. 

“Feisty,” she smirked. “Just heard some rumors that might interest you. That Fire Nation ship is starting to make a nuisance of itself.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes narrowed. 

The bartender looked off across the room. “They were playing nice for a couple days, just restocking. Then, boom,” she snapped her fingers. “Their commander’s out marching the streets. He’s looking for somebody.”

Zuko thought he already knew who the commander was looking for, so he was surprised when Chae Won said, “A boy with a huge burn scar on his face, traveling with an old man.”

Zuko’s nails dug into his palms. 

“Just watch out for yourself, friend,” the bartender finished, walking out of the kitchen. 

* * *

—

* * *

It was dusk, and inside the bartender’s spare room, where they stayed, Uncle was replacing Zuko’s bandages. It was a small, plain wooden room, with a little round table, two chairs, and a single futon. A window looked down at the empty street. Zuko hadn’t left the bar all day after dropping Sheng Lei off at the Earth Army outpost. 

Iroh tutted as he unveiled the large cut on Zuko’s upper back shoulder.

“Is it healing?” Zuko asked. 

“Yes,” his uncle said gravely. “Faster than you would expect, but slower than you would want.” Carefully, Iroh rewrapped some torn cloth around Zuko’s shoulder. “You must rest, Nephew.”

“There’s no time,” he hissed. “Zhao’s _looking _for us.”

“I heard,” Iroh commiserated. 

Zuko sighed, a heavy, aggravated rush of breath. “This wouldn’t be a _problem_ if I’d just taken care of him in the first place.”

“Zuko,” Iroh snapped, his voice much sharper than it normally was. Zuko’s back shot straight, his arms laden with tension. “You are not Lee, the Earth Kingdom bounty hunter. You do not have that luxury.” Iroh finished tying off his bandage. “You are Zuko, Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, son of Fire Lord Ozai. The second you kill a Fire Navy commander is the second you forfeit that right. A disguise does not condone your actions.”

“That was not a Fire Navy commander,” Zuko choked out. “That’s not how the Fire Nation is supposed to act.”

“It does not _matter,_” Iroh said, his voice harsh. “Every action you take against the Fire Nation is another action your father holds against you. Lee is a public figure. People have taken notice of him. People watch him, expect things of him. People remember, and once you have revealed yourself, word will reach even to the Fire Nation.”

Zuko bowed his head, thoughts dark. “I understand,” he muttered. 

“I know it is hard, Nephew.” His uncle gently patted his uninjured shoulder. “But if you ever wish to return home, then you must remember that a different face does not shield one from honor.”

Zuko’s throat was tight. “A dead man has no honor.”

“You are not dead,” his uncle chastised. 

Zuko pushed himself out of his chair and spun to face Iroh. “Then what _am_ I, Uncle?” His voice was strained, breaking. “Prince Zuko is dead and Lee is a _lie!” _Zuko kicked the chair over on its side, panting, feeling fire build up deep within his stomach. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear at the walls, rip the wood from its supports, burn the bar to the ground. “I’m _nothing._”

Iroh took a step forward and wrapped his arms fully around Zuko’s chest. “You are my nephew,” Iroh said simply. 

Zuko hated himself for how much he wanted to cry. He didn’t move. He didn’t try to hug Iroh back, and eventually Iroh let go. 

The fire inside his stomach had receded. 

Zuko walked over to the window, staring down at the street, while his uncle packed up his medical supplies. He felt odd, off-balanced. He wasn’t sure what to do. Or, rather, he knew what he _wanted _to do, but he didn’t know if it was the right thing to do. 

He spoke suddenly, voice cutting across the room. “They say that the Avatar is the strongest man in the world.”

After a moment, Iroh said, “A fully realized one, indeed.”

“My father won’t like that,” Zuko said simply. 

“I imagine he will not.”

Zuko tore his gaze from the street and looked at his uncle, sitting casually at the small table. “It’s the one bargaining chip he won’t refuse. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Iroh hummed, tilting his head. “You are not wrong.”

Zuko clenched his fist, feeling his nails bite into his palms. He needed to cut them. “Then I steal the Avatar, and sneak back into the palace. He’ll have to give me my name back, then.” They both knew which “he” Zuko was talking about. His father. “He’ll make up some lie, like he always does, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

His uncle looked sad, somehow. “It will be difficult.”

“I don’t care,” Zuko snarled, turning back to the window. He didn’t want to look into his uncle’s sad eyes. “This is the chance we’ve been waiting for. I’m _not_ going to let it go.”

“And I will be by your side,” his uncle said gently. “Every step of the way.”

Down on the street, three Fire Nation soldiers marched across Zuko’s vision, idly talking but too far away for Zuko to hear any of their words. Zuko slunk back into the room, closing the green curtain over the window, and helped his uncle light a few candles. 

* * *

—

* * *

When the morning came, the sun just tipping over the horizon, Zuko had a terrible plan. He had enough range of motion to lift his left arm up parallel to the ground, and that would have to do. 

Leaving his uncle snoring on the futon, Zuko left to find the bartender, Chae Won, who always knew more than she had any right to. He found her in the kitchen, making rice in a large pot. Zuko settled against the counter to her right. 

It took her a long time, but eventually she noticed him and yelped, “Oma and Shu!” Her spoon jerked in the air and a boiling splatter of water soared through the air, hitting her arm. She dropped the spoon entirely and clutched at her arm, hissing. 

Zuko made a half-aborted motion, reaching out, but then he realized he didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he put them back at his sides. “Sorry,” he said. 

“Don’t sneak up on people, idiot!” she growled. 

“Sorry,” he said again. 

She rolled her eyes and picked up her spoon. “Are you here to talk to me? I don’t talk to people before opening hours. Policy.”

She seemed different in the morning. Less accommodating. Zuko conceded that some people were just like that. “I don’t care,” he said. “I need to know what the Fire Nation commander is doing.”

“And you think I know?” she griped. 

Zuko narrowed his eyes. “I _know _you know.”

“Cheeky brat,” Chae Won muttered. “It’s not exactly juicy information, so I guess I’ll tell you. Nothing. He’s done nothing. Holed up in his ship. Probably set to leave.”

Zuko smiled, and from Chae Won’s dubious look, it was not a nice smile. As he turned to leave, she called out, “Don’t get killed, little hunter. A lot of people have high hopes riding on you.”

It was an odd thing to say. Zuko looked back at her, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore, just stirring her pot. He put it out of his mind. Zuko had a boat to catch. 

* * *

—

* * *

Ideally, sneaking onto a Fire Nation battleship was an activity meant for the night, but Zuko knew that this cruiser wasn’t going to stay in port much longer, maybe not even until the afternoon. He reminded himself that the new moon was only a few days away, and then Zuko wouldn’t be able to do anything other than hide in the forest and try not to eat anyone who wandered too close. 

(Zuko had never eaten a person, especially not alive and uncooked. Gross.)

That didn’t mean that it was impossible to sneak aboard Zhao’s ship, only challenging. All that was left was the question of Zuko’s face, which he knew Zhao wasn’t going to forget any time soon. Zuko had made sure of that. 

Zuko needed a disguise from his disguise. 

In the port town, there was no shortage of odd-looking shops. One of them was a costume shop, a retailer for traveling Earth Kingdom operas and plays. It was closed for the season, the wooden door locked and barred. 

Zuko slid into an alleyway and pulled the knife out of his boot to cut off the hinges of a window in the back, barely making a sound. He pulled himself inside the broken window and stood in a nearly deserted store room. There was a mirror and a few dresses and theatrical fans laid on a rack, but the room was mostly empty. 

In the front room, Zuko found what he was looking for. Wooden masks. There wasn’t an especially large collection, but Zuko recognized one of them. The Blue Spirit. He remembered going to see that opera as a child. Azula had thought it was boring. Zuko didn’t remember what it was about. He grabbed it, since he had no reason to pick any other one.

He left ten gold coins on a table, and picked up a full black stage uniform off a rack. It was one of the few costumes that the shop seemed to have too many of, or just seemed to have, in general. 

In the back room, Zuko swapped out his torn and heavily blood-stained clothing with the all-black uniform, tying the pants tight around his calves and cinching the tie around his waist. He burned his old clothing, holding it up in his hand and feeling remorseless as he urged the fabric to catch fire and turn to ashes, which he swept away into the corner of the room with his boot. 

He looked at himself in the mirror and decided that he looked plain enough, with his scabbard tied around his waist, his dao two bright specks of gold. Wearing all black was not common in the Earth Kingdom, and he would stand out in a crowd. But he would blend in better with shadows, and that thought cheered him up. 

Zuko slid the Blue Spirit mask over his face and watched himself through its eye slits. His hair, he decided, which flowed long along his back. His hair might still give him away, especially paired with his swords. 

He considered cutting his hair off. It certainly would help the disguise. But Zuko liked using it to cover his face. It helped him to think that he could hide, even in broad daylight. He didn’t like when people stared at his scar. 

He tied his hair back into a low ponytail with a piece of string, in an Earth Kingdom style, and decided it would do. He climbed out of the costume shop, and instead of going back into the street, he tried to climb up the wall of the building, sinking his nails into the wood. His back twinged with pain, and he leaned heavily on his right arm, but eventually he managed to pull himself to the roof. 

Leaping along the rooftops, he made his way to the docks. 

The docks seemed emptier than usual. Ships that had been there yesterday were gone, and none had replaced them. The Fire Nation cruiser was large and looming, a dragonfly in a blue jay nest, three smoke-stacks spitting out fumes.

Two armored soldiers guarded the gangplank. Zuko watched a messenger hawk fly away from the highest cabin of the ship and sail off into the sky. 

Zuko slunk down the wall into an alley, and from there, dodging from shadow to shadow, dove into the water of the bay. He knew that he was probably not supposed to get an opera mask wet, but he had very little choice as he swam to the side of the cruiser opposite the gangplank. His injury screamed at him, belatedly reminding him that he should probably not get that wet, either, especially not with seawater.

His masked head popped back above the water, staring up at the sheer metal of the cruiser’s hull. 

A few leaps of acrobatics later, which Zuko _knew_ he shouldn’t be doing, he perched outside the highest cabin window, listening. At the very least, since the blood wasn’t going to show up on his uniform, he didn’t think his uncle was going to scold him about reopening his stab wound. 

Besides the faint caws of a messenger hawk, Zuko heard nothing against the wind coming off the bay. He inched closer to the window, and peered over the side. It was an ornately decorated office, dark red Fire Nation tapestries lining the walls. The messenger hawk was in a golden cage, sitting idly on its perch. There were scrolls on the desk, and Zuko smiled. 

After carefully listening for another second, to see if anyone was going to enter the room, he painfully pulled himself inside. 

Some of them were reports made by Zhao’s crew. Stockpile requisitions. Status reports. Mission updates. 

_A cabbage merchant claimed to have seen a boy of the correct description. He did not know his location. _

There was a Fire Nation wanted poster with the Avatar’s face on it. It gave no price, but was simply stamped with Fire Nation royal seal. Zuko stole it, rolling it up and sticking it in his scabbard. 

One of the scrolls was sent by Zuko’s father. It wasn’t in his father’s handwriting, but some other neat script. Regardless, it was stamped with the Fire Nation royal seal. 

_Let this scroll signify that Zhao, after years of loyal service, be hereby given authority as Admiral, to aid him in his duties to the Fire Nation. _

Zuko raised his eyebrow. Zhao had been promoted. 

_His mission, to eliminate the threat to our Glorious Nation, the Avatar, will supersede all others. _

Zuko carefully put the scroll down. 

_Glory to the Fire Lord, and Long May He Reign. _

He was about to pick up a scroll sent from Pohuai Stronghold, when he heard the loud clanking footsteps of a soldier. 

When the soldier entered the room, no one was there. 

* * *

——

* * *

Convincing his uncle that they needed to travel northward, toward Pohuai Stronghold, just on the hunch that that was where Zhao thought that the Avatar would be, was much easier than he thought it would be. 

“The Stronghold is quite the sight to behold, Nephew!” Uncle ruminated. “I remembered visiting it with Natsu, all those years ago. Excellent guest rooms. Their beds were so soft.”

Zuko groaned and turned away from him. 

“I don’t actually remember much else about it, now that I think about it,” Iroh said, tapping his chin, and Zuko wanted to jump off a cliff into white waters. 

He instead busied himself with throwing their newly purchased provisions into a bag, along with his waterlogged opera mask, and a water canteen. 

After a last lunch at Chae Won’s bar, where Chae Won said she’d be keeping an ear out for them, and Zuko had said, “Don’t bother,” they set off down the road. 

In the quiet of the afternoon, with the sun warming his skin, Zuko finally remembered that his uncle had lost his favorite Pai Sho tile. 

“Did you find it?” he asked. 

“Find what?” Uncle asked benignly. 

“Your stupid lotus tile.”

Now, his uncle smiled broadly. “Nephew,” he said, in the tone of voice he had when he was holding back laughter. “You’re never going to believe it.”

“What?” Zuko mumbled. 

“The lotus tile was in my sleeve the whole time!” Iroh pulled the tile out to show him.

Zuko wanted to scream, but resigned himself to sighing deeply and burying his face in his hands.  


* * *

—

* * *

Avoiding Cao, the small village where they had first encountered Zhao, they traveled northeast, toward the larger town of Gaipan. They were getting much closer to the ever-changing border between the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation colonies. Had Zuko not been on a mission, they would have doubled back south, burying themselves in the deep Earth Kingdom. The closer they got to the Fire Nation, the more likely it became that someone would recognize Iroh, and then they would have to run again. They were always running. 

Zuko was trying to change that. 

When they reached Gaipan, it was fully night. Zuko and Iroh stood on a ravine, gazing down at a town that was no longer a town at all, but a flooded wasteland, water glittering in the faint starlight. Zuko didn’t know what to feel. 

There was a refugee camp on their ravine, but it wasn’t in any way well-equipped. There were no tents. Groups of ten to twenty people hovered around campfires, parents clutching children to their chests. 

When Zuko and Iroh entered the paltry camp, he felt dozens of hungry eyes dart their way. A small group broke off from a firepit and rushed over to them. 

“Do you have any word from Cao?” the elderly man asked, bald except for a grey goatee, his robe deep Fire Nation red. “Or from Hua Li?”

Zuko exchanged a look with his uncle. It seemed like the colony-Earth Kingdom border had shifted once again. 

“If you have sent for aid,” his uncle said, “then I am afraid we did not encounter it. We are but simple travelers.”

Zuko cleared his throat. “What happened here?” he gestured down at the flooded town. 

A middle-aged man spoke up, his face fully bearded. “Someone blew the dam,” he said, voice downtrodden. “Some Water Tribe kid came running into town, warning us. Good thing we listened.”

Zuko felt his back straighten. “Who blew the dam?”

“Probably those damn children in the woods,” another man spoke up, his hair in a simple topknot, his voice full of vitriol. “If I see another one of their faces, I swear I’m gonna stuff it with blasting jelly.”

Zuko and Iroh exchanged another look. 

“_What_ children?” Zuko demanded. 

The group of men urged them to join them around their campfire, and pulled another log from the forest for them to sit on. Zuko didn’t particularly want to sit, but did so anyway. 

The old man in red sat down with a weary sigh. “It’s been over a year now,” he said. Topknot kicked at the dirt. Full-beard sighed. “They’re a group of thieves who live out in the woods. I’ve heard they call themselves the Freedom Fighters.”

“They’re just a nuisance,” Topknot picked up. “A bounty hunter should’ve cleaned them up and thrown them in jail months ago.”

“Eichi,” the old man warned. “They’re just lost children.”

“Look what they’ve done to us, Hiroki!” Topknot gestured to the flooded town. “We’ve lost _everything!”_

A depressed silence came over the small group of men. 

Zuko leaned his elbows on his knees, and wanted to snap at them to all get over themselves. People lost things all the time. _Deal with it._ So, what if they lost all their belongings? Zuko hadn’t had any belongings since he was thirteen. These men needed to get a grip. 

“I’m sorry,” Iroh said. “To have lost your home like that must have been hard.”

Full-beard shrugged. “We’re doing what we can. Most everyone who could travel walked to Cao. Everyone who couldn’t stayed here.” He gestured at their refugee camp. “We’re hoping that the flood dies down enough for us to go look for anything that survived.”

Iroh nodded. “A solid plan. I wish we could offer more in the way of assistance, but all we have is on our backs.”

“If you could offer any news,” the old man said, “I would be grateful.”

As Iroh talked about what they knew of Hua Li, Zuko gazed off into the dark forest. Maybe the “Freedom Fighters” were still out there, hiding in the trees. 

Maybe they were with the Avatar. 

The refugees said that they did not mind if Iroh and Zuko stayed with them for the night, so long as they did not cause any trouble. There was no harm in it, and the night passed uneasily. 

In the morning, Zuko began really feeling the consequences of reopening the wound on his back. Iroh kept giving him worried looks, but they both knew they were being watched, and didn’t want to show any weaknesses. 

The refugees had no food to eat, and no fishing poles or bows to hunt. A few of the more abled bodied people had fetched berries and nuts from the forest, but the harvest was slim. Tension was high in the camp, and a child cried, a high continuous wail. 

It was time to leave. There was nothing they could do for these people. 

Uncle looked sad as they slipped away into the forest, unseen. They walked in silence, leaves crunching under their feet, eating their own provisions. Zuko wondered if his wound had reopened a second time, as he felt something drip down his back. 

“You should be taking it easy, Nephew,” Uncle said. “I know you are hurting.”

“It’ll take us another couple of days to get to the Stronghold,” he grunted. “I’ll rest today.”

His uncle gave him a shrewd look. “And if we encounter these Freedom Fighters in the woods?”

It was physically painful for Zuko to say, “I’ll do nothing.”

* * *

—

* * *

He held no illusions about whether or not they were going to encounter the Freedom Fighters in the woods. It was only a question of _when._

Zuko held up a hand and he and Iroh stopped on their trail. He had heard a strange sound, like a rope moving through a pulley. Someone landed behind him. 

They calmly turned around. 

There were two of them. A kid, short, with a bob of brown hair and two red streaks painted on each side of their face. Another one, about Zuko’s age, tall, with a straw conical hat, carrying a bow. 

He pointed an arrow at them, while the kid pulled out a knife. 

“We saw you come from the town,” the kid snarled. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Zuko rested his hand on his dao and Iroh gave him a warning look. Zuko took his hand off his dao. 

“We are traveling north, moving to the next town,” Iroh explained genially, like he wasn’t being threatened at bow point. 

“That makes you Fire Nation!” the kid yelled, shaking their knife at them. 

“I assure you, we are not—” Iroh said, and Zuko wanted to laugh, “—we are just simple travelers, moving through life.”

The kid narrowed their eyes. “Simple travelers aren’t armed to the teeth.”

“The roads are _dangerous_, these days,” Zuko said, and tried to keep his voice as civil as he could make it. It wasn’t very civil.

He felt the archer’s aim center on his chest. 

“Now, now,” his uncle reasoned, waving his hands. “I’m sure we can reach an agreement without coming to blows. We promise you that we hold you no ill will. Just let us pass, and no harm will come to anyone.”

The kid licked their lips, looking up uncertainly at the archer. The archer glanced down uncertainly at the kid. 

“Well,” said the kid, and Zuko had originally thought that they were a boy, but he wasn’t entirely sure, now. “We’re looking for someone. A member of our group.”

“We’re looking for someone as well,” Zuko said.

“Perhaps we could help one another,” Iroh reasoned. “My nephew is quite good at finding people,” he clapped his hand on Zuko’s good shoulder. “It’s his job.”

“Then how come you didn’t find whoever_ you_ were looking for, yet?” the kid spat. 

“I will,” Zuko said, leaving no room for debate. 

The kid looked nervously back at the archer. The archer, slowly, put down his bow, leaving the arrow still nocked, but aiming at the ground. 

“Have you seen a tall teenager with black hair?” the kid blurted, clutching their knife. “He’s about your height and build,” they pointed at Zuko, “and he’s got two hook swords.”

Zuko and Iroh exchanged a look. 

“We could have,” Zuko lied, pulling out the Avatar’s wanted poster from his belt. He unfurled it. “We’re looking for him.”

Zuko could tell instantly that both of them knew who was on the wanted poster intimately, and they weren’t sure if they should give anything away. 

“His name’s Aang,” Zuko said, lying through his teeth. He wasn’t any good at this. “He’s a friend, and I’m worried about him.”

The kid and the archer gave him dubious looks. “We might’ve seen him,” the kid hedged. “If you take us to where Jet is, we might tell you something more.”

“His name’s Jet?” Zuko scoffed. “That’s not a real name.”

“Shut up!” the kid shouted. “It’s _his _name! He picked it!”

Zuko held up a hand to show that he was backing off. 

“And what are your names?” Iroh asked, hands tucked into his sleeves. 

“I’m Smellerbee,” the kid said, and they pointed to the archer. “That’s Longshot.”

Zuko disguised his laugh with a cough. 

“My nephew has a horrible disease,” his uncle explained. “They say he will only last a few more months.”

Zuko shot a glare at his uncle, who looked appropriately distraught at his nephew’s soon demise. Zuko couldn’t believe they were doing this. 

“We are trying to reconnect with all his friends, before his time comes,” Uncle continued, and Zuko watched Smellerbee’s eyes soften, and Longshot un-nock his arrow. 

They were doing this. Zuko sighed. “Tell us where you last saw this… Jet.”

Smellerbee explained, with a halting tone, how Jet had gone to the ravine overlooking the dam. They didn’t say why, but Zuko could make a guess. 

“How long has he been missing?”

“Since yesterday,” they said. 

There was something the “Freedom Fighters” (_what a joke_) weren’t telling them, and Zuko guessed it had to do with the Water Tribe siblings and the Avatar. 

Zuko didn’t want to take a detour, but if it meant finding information about the Avatar, then he guessed he had no choice. 

Smellerbee and Longshot led them through the forest, taking their own path that only they seemed to know. Zuko peered carefully around at the trees, and caught sight of hanging ropes and pulleys, perched up in the boughs. A tree hide-out. How quaint. 

“What’re_ your _names?” Smellerbee asked, walking backwards to keep them in eyesight. 

“I’m Mushi, and this is my nephew, Lee,” his uncle said. 

“You’re _really_ not Fire Nation?” they asked, testing them. 

“No,” Iroh smiled, his yellow eyes merry. “Just simple Earth Kingdom refugees.”

“That’s all we are, too,” Smellerbee said, voice muted. “Jet makes it seem like we’re more than we are, sometimes. But we’re not. We’re not rebels, or freedom fighters. We’re just some kids. I guess I forgot that.”

Longshot was silent, as always, but now his head was bowed. 

“What happened?” Iroh asked, concerned. 

“We went too far, is all,” Smellerbee said. They shrugged. 

Zuko raised his eyebrow. Not what he expected from the people who blew up the dam over Gaipan. 

“Jet didn’t come back,” Smellerbee continued, and they seemed like they were just happy to speak to someone about this. “Everyone got scared, then. They got worried that the Fire Nation was going to storm the base, and they all split this morning. We didn’t.”

Longshot had a very tight grip on his bow. 

“We didn’t,” Smellerbee repeated, softer, almost sadly.

“Gaipan sent for help,” Zuko said. “They’re right. The Fire Nation _will_ come after you. You can’t stay here.”

Smellerbee looked up at him with wide eyes. Longshot rested his hand on their shoulder. He nodded. 

They walked for a little longer, and Zuko kept his eyes out for anyone in the woods. Eventually, they reached the top of the ravine, and there was nowhere else to go. Zuko searched for any sign of a person, any scent of blood, and he did catch it, up against a tree that was oddly damp, despite how clear the sky was. 

As he tried to figure it out, a figure jumped out of the tree and almost speared him in the back. Zuko rolled away at the last moment. 

As he came back to his feet, panting, hand catching his dao, his uncle sent him a glare. Zuko took his hand off his dao. 

“Jet!” Smellerbee yelled, and quickly threw themselves between them. “Jet, where have you been?”

The figure was clad in an odd assortment of armor, much like the other two they had met. His black hair was an unruly mess on his head, and his eyes were dark. “Who’re these people?” he demanded, pointing with his hook sword at Zuko. 

“Just some people we ran into,” Smellerbee exclaimed. “Where have you been? We’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

Something about Jet seemed _off_ to Zuko. It reminded him of his sister, whenever she threw a tantrum. 

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Jet growled, his face shadowed. “This was supposed to be a victory, but everyone left. Everyone’s gone.”

“You went back to base?” Smellerbee asked. 

“You just _let_ them leave?” Jet accused, and he wasn’t putting his swords down. 

Smellerbee raised their chin. “What was I _supposed _to do?”

“Keep them there until I came back!”

“We didn’t think you _would!” _Smellerbee’s knuckles were white around their knife. “We can’t stay here, Jet! We can’t take down an entire Fire Nation army!”

“Then they’re just _weak!” _Jet yelled. “They didn’t have the guts to do what had to be done!”

Zuko’s hand twitched. He wanted to draw his swords. 

Then Longshot was there, and he pushed Jet’s arms down to his sides, and Jet let him. 

Zuko awkwardly cleared his throat. “We had a deal.”

All three of the Freedom Fighters turned to look at him. 

“I found your Jet for you,” Zuko nodded to the man. “Now tell me about the Av—Aang.”

Jet’s eyes flicked to Smellerbee. “Did you hire someone?”

“He’s just a sick guy we ran into,” they shrugged. “Wanted to find his friend, Aang.”

“Aang never mentioned you,” Jet said suspiciously.

“It’s been a few years,” Zuko lied. “I don’t know if he remembers me.”

Jet slowly stepped up to him, then, moving a bare foot away, scowling in a way that Zuko thought might be an attempt at trying to intimidate him. Jet was an inch taller than him. Zuko wondered if he should act intimidated. 

“You’re an interesting guy,” Jet said, and Zuko realized that he was staring at Zuko’s scar. 

“I’m not interested in small talk,” Zuko scowled, tilting his head so a bit more hair fell over the left side of his face. “Where did he go? He was obviously here not too long ago.”

“It’s true,” Jet said, flippantly. “He was here.”

“Any idea where he _went?” _Zuko snapped. 

Jet’s eyes flickered. “I could take you to him.”

“Could you?” Zuko asked, but it was less of a question and more of a dare. 

Iroh gently dragged Zuko back a step. 

“Any help would be much appreciated,” his uncle said. “But we must not strain my nephew too much. His illness is quite severe.”

Zuko rolled his eyes to the sky. 

Jet also took a step back, tucking his hooked swords into his belt. He leaned his hands on his hips. “I also want to find Aang. We might as well travel together. We’d be working towards the same goal.”

Zuko did not think that they were at all working towards the same goal. He shared a look with his uncle. 

“Nobody knows this area better than we do,” Jet continued, and Zuko knew he was trying to manipulate them into agreeing. 

“What a wonderful idea!” Iroh said, and Zuko had never felt more like strangling his uncle. “Lee, what a wonderful chance to make new friends!”

Zuko thought it had a better chance of making three new dead bodies. 

“As long as we’re going north,” Zuko grumbled. 

“Great!” Jet said, clapping his hands with false cheer. 

Zuko didn’t like him. 

* * *

—

* * *

North led them straight into the colonies, and Longshot and Smellerbee were appropriately concerned about that fact, as they spent that evening over a fire (which Longshot lit with his flint). All three of them had gathered their own food supplies from their tree-base, and they ate a tense dinner. 

“Jet,” Smellerbee entreated, “this is a bad idea. You know we didn’t exactly leave off on the uh— best of terms—”

“It’s just a misunderstanding,” Jet said, waving them off. “Once I see them again, I’m sure it’ll clear up.”

“What’s the misunderstanding,” Zuko taunted, aggressively ripping off a piece of his bread. “I’m guessing he didn’t like the part where you tried to drown a city of people.”

“You know,” Jet said, stretching his neck. “I never _did_ hear how you and Aang first met.”

“Because I never told you,” Zuko said.

“We’re all friends here, Lee,” Jet said threateningly. “I’d love to hear a story.”

Zuko met his eyes across the campfire, not backing down. “So would I.”

“How about how you got that_ scar_?” Jet offered, leaning back on his hands. 

Zuko felt himself involuntarily twitch and hated himself for it. “How about how you got your stupid name, _Jet_?” 

Jet clenched his fist.

“Lovely night we’re having, hm?” Uncle mused. 

“Yes, Uncle,” Zuko said, taking a deep, calming breath. “It is.”

Smellerbee and Longshot looked extremely uncomfortable, exchanging their own glances where they sat on Jet’s right. 

“Lee,” Jet asked, aiming for conversational. “You said it was your job to find people. What job is that?”

Zuko took a sip from his canteen. “Oh,” he murmured, and he smiled one of his unkind smiles. “I’m a bounty hunter.”

Smellerbee sat back, exchanging a worried glance with Longshot. 

“A bounty hunter, huh?” Jet mused. “If I’m not mistaken, we all have bounties on our heads.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Zuko said, feeling the heartbeat of the flames in the campfire. 

“Aang has a bounty on his head, too, doesn’t he?” Jet continued, his voice oil-slick smooth. 

“You think that’s what this is about?” Zuko raised his eyebrow.

“I know Aang isn’t your friend,” Jet said, orange light dancing on his cheekbones. “It’s obvious. He only popped out of the iceberg this year. You couldn’t have known him any earlier.”

Zuko had no idea what “popped out of the iceberg” could possibly mean, but he wasn’t going to let Jet know that. “So maybe I lied about how long I knew him.” He wanted to shrug, but that motion was still extremely painful for him. “You’re all wanted by the Fire Nation. Same goes for Aang. I only take Earth Kingdom bounties.” Which was also a lie, but a very plausible one. 

Jet frowned. “Why would you lie about how long you knew him?”

Zuko looked around the small, uncomfortable campfire. He didn’t appreciate being interrogated. “That’s _my _business.”

“It’s our business while we’re traveling together.”

“Then we won’t travel together,” he said simply, and wished that Jet grabbed his companions and left that instant. 

He didn’t. He just smiled, a wide, charming smile. Jet knew when to back down. “I’m sorry for being so pushy.” _Liar_, Zuko thought. “I’m just very curious about you two.”

“We’re nothing special,” Uncle said, waving his hand. He turned the focus back on them, playing their little game of back and forth. “Nothing like the Freedom Fighters. Now, _that’s_ a name.”

Jet shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “We’re just trying to stand up for what we believe in.”

“What is that?” Zuko asked darkly. “What do you believe in?”

Jet’s dark eyes glittered. “An end to the Fire Nation, of course.”

He was a puny Earth Kingdom peasant to think that he could take down the Fire Nation. “Of course,” Zuko repeated. 

“Jet,” Smellerbee broke in, “I’m still worried about going into Fire Nation territory. I really don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Jet finally tore his gaze away from Zuko and looked down at Smellerbee. “C’mon, Smellerbee. We’re not gonna get anything done if we don’t go to the source.”

“I think we’ll be overrun at the source! It’s just the three of us, now.” Smellerbee clenched their tiny fist in the dirt. “I think we should be going somewhere safer, like Ba Sing Se.”

“Ba Sing Se?” Jet asked, confused. “What do you think we could possibly do there?”

“Start over,” they said, quietly. 

Uncle shifted in his seat, and Zuko glanced over to him. He looked deep in thought, staring off into the trees. Zuko frowned. His uncle always looked sad when he was reminded of Ba Sing Se. 

“Well, it’s not just the three of us,” Jet pouted. “We have our two new friends,” he gestured at Iroh and Zuko, “and we’ll soon have Aang and Katara.”

“But we won’t, Jet,” Smellerbee said. “Can’t you see?”

“What’re you getting at?” Jet snapped. “You think I can’t do my job, is that it? You think you could lead people better than I can?”

Smellerbee let out a frustrated noise. “I thought you were smarter than this!”

“I thought you didn’t give up so easily! You’re my right hands! Both of you!” Jet entreated. “I thought you were with me!”

“We are!” Smellerbee yelled. 

“Then why don’t you trust me?” Jet beseeched. 

The kid looked down at the ground, and their face became obscured, mouth twisted with some emotion. “Because you’re going to get us killed, Jet!”

They stormed away from the fire, after that. For a second, everyone was still, but then Longshot stood up, and he chased after them, always without a word. 

The wind seemed to fall out from under Jet’s sails, and he slumped on the ground. His expression turned unexpectedly fragile, like he was about to break in two. 

Zuko had half a mind to rub the betrayal into Jet’s face, because Zuko wasn’t a nice person. But he was also tired of talking to the other teen, and his uncle had still banned him from fighting. 

“Go after them,” his uncle said, eyes still lost in a faraway place. 

Jet jerked his head up. “What?”

“You need them, don’t you?” Uncle asked. 

Shakily, Jet nodded his head. 

Iroh smiled. “Then what are you waiting for?” 

Jet stood up in one halted motion. 

“I—” Jet started to say, but then he shut his mouth and shook his head. “Let’s meet up again, sometime. If we ever see each other again.” He shook his head. “I don’t know where Aang is,” he swallowed. “You all knew I was lying, anyway, so it didn’t matter.”

“Shut up and leave,” Zuko growled. 

Jet laughed. “I’ll figure you out one day, Lee! Mark my words.” He had gotten a few steps before he stopped, and, without turning around, murmured, “Thank you, Mushi.”

Jet ran off into the woods. 

It was just Iroh and Zuko, now, as it had originally been, sitting around the cheerfully dancing fire. 

Zuko loudly groaned. “I hope you’re happy,” he griped, disgusted. “We helped them.”

“Why, Nephew,” Iroh said innocently. “Why ever would you think that was my plan?”

Using his pack as a pillow, Zuko laid down on the ground, curling in on his uninjured shoulder. “Whatever, old man. When this comes back to bite us, I’m blaming you.”

* * *

\-- 


	4. Wanted: The Blue Spirit, Ghost - Part I

When the storm hit, Zuko was not ready. He and his uncle stumbled, exhausted, upon a shallow cave in the mountains, and barely made it inside before the downpour soaked the rock side like a slap from La himself. 

They stood, panting, taking in the grey fury that the sky beat against the ground. Zuko shivered. He clutched his arms, absent-mindedly rubbing his hands up and down. They were stuck in the cave, now. 

“Why don’t we take a seat,” Iroh said, brushing away a layer of dust from the cold rock. He lowered himself into a lotus position with a heavy sigh. 

Outside the cave, the rain formed a kind of wall, a dark grey shield against the world. Zuko realized that he wasn’t breathing right. He needed to breathe right. It was very important.

“Nephew?” Iroh asked, when Zuko didn’t say anything. 

Zuko kept his eyes on the storm. The sound of rain was like a never-ending scream. 

“Zuko,” his uncle murmured, his voice deepening.

Zuko felt like he had been slapped. He tore his eyes away from the storm and forced himself to lean against the cave wall and slide down into a sitting position, arms wrapped around his knees. 

_But it wasn’t a cave wall, it was a stone wall covered with deep claw marks. _

The wall wasn’t covered in claw marks, and the exit was very clearly directly to his left. It wasn’t barred. There was nothing keeping him here. There was _nothing _keeping him here. 

Zuko looked down at his hands, at the scarring around his wrists from a year spent walking in chains. He swallowed. 

“A shame there’s no wood,” Uncle was saying. “A good fire would have been much appreciated.”

Zuko forced himself to focus on his uncle. The wrinkles around his reddish-brown eyes. They weren’t anything like his father’s eyes. His bushy grey beard, his brown, threadbare clothing. Reliable Uncle. 

“Storm hit faster than we thought,” Zuko whispered. 

His uncle murmured his assent. 

In the dim light of the cave, they sat, listening to the fury of the storm, safe with the knowledge that they weren’t alone. 

* * *

—

* * *

There was nothing quite like the Yuyan Archers to strike fear into the hearts of men. Zuko remembered the stories from when he was a child. Archers were hand-picked at the age of six and trained relentlessly until they made their first kill at six hundred meters. He remembered when Azula went through a phase where she was convinced that she was better than any archer, no matter how well-trained, and spent some fruitless weeks with a bow on the training grounds. 

She _was _very good at it. But she didn’t need Zuko to tell her that. She knew. 

_Speared turtle-ducks, floating in a pool of their own blood._

“Guard posts,” Zuko pointed to a dark cluster high in the branches of a tree. He pointed to another such area in a tree farther down the road. “They’re manned.”

Uncle stroked his beard. “Much farther back than I remembered.” 

“They’re looking for the Avatar,” Zuko said, determined. “And maybe us. Let’s not give them the chance. Let’s go.” 

They retreated back into the woods. 

Reaching Pohuai Stronghold felt like a triumph, but a short-lived one, because once they had reached it, Zuko no longer knew what he needed to do. He needed more information. He needed to get into the Stronghold itself and find Admiral Zhao. 

But tonight was the new moon. 

Uncle watched him pace in a small grassy clearing, his eyes following him back and forth. 

“Maybe Zhao had already captured the Avatar,” Uncle threw out, almost off-handedly. “Maybe Zhao never came here at all.”

“I _know, _Uncle.”

“Maybe Zhao is there but the Avatar is not. There are many possibilities, Nephew. And one way of finding out.”

Zuko stopped in place. “You agree, then.”

“We are working under a time limit,” Uncle said, brows drawn low. “Any delay, and the risk to your life will be insurmountable. You _cannot _be seen. Not by anyone.”

Zuko stamped his foot, whipping his fist at the ground. “I know that!” He took a deep, shaky breath. “But Zhao could be moving the Avatar. They could be gone by tomorrow!”

Iroh stepped forward and rested his hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “I will never stop you from doing what you think is right.” He squeezed Zuko’s shoulder and smiled, “But if you are not back before sunset then I will have to storm the Stronghold by myself.”

Zuko let out a breath, his anger diffusing into worry. “Don’t do that.”

His uncle quirked an eyebrow. “Then be back before sunset.”

Zuko rolled his eyes and shrugged off his uncle’s hand. 

Iroh was studiously noncommittal as Zuko pulled on his opera mask, blue paint starting to chip away with all the wear Zuko had put it through, and tied his hair back with a string. 

Zuko nodded at his uncle, but before he turned to leave, Iroh caught his arm. 

His words chilled Zuko to the core. “It is likely that the Stronghold will feel like a _prison,_ Zuko.”

Zuko felt an involuntary tremor go through his hands. 

“Be careful,” Iroh whispered. 

* * *

— 

* * *

The powerful storm from last night still hadn’t completely dissipated as Zuko clung to the undercarriage of a supply wagon pulled by an old, lumbering komodo rhino. A streak of lightning coursed through the sky like a warning and thunder shook the ground. Zuko held himself in place, his arms and legs tensed, his swords tied to his back so as not to drag through the dirt. 

With the sky covered by clouds, Zuko would not know when night finally hit. He needed to be fast, then. In and out. Luckily, he had no rope, no plan, no time, and no advice.

Zuko was clearly working under the best conditions possible.

He refused to ask himself what he was doing here. He pushed the question so far from his mind that it felt like meditation, his breath matching the breath of a candle. 

They reached the gate to Pohuai Stronghold and the wagon rumbled to a stop. A guard broke off, approaching the middling officer sitting up on the wagon. Zuko watched the guard’s feet walk towards the side of the cart. 

Zuko silently pulled himself into the back of the wagon, huddling among the army supplies, and he heard the guard give the all clear. The wagon started lumbering forward again, and Zuko watched the gate close behind him with a heavy heart. 

The towering stone walls extended upwards a full sixty feet. Watchtowers were spread periodically along them in the typical Fire Nation pagoda style.

It felt exactly like a prison. 

Zuko closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. 

His eyes snapped open when the wagon came to another halt, and, in a flash, Zuko was out and slinking into the shadows, huddling underneath an archway. 

Inside the walls, there was a fairly simple layout. A central tower, arcing up above the fortress, and down by the gates, a big empty unloading area, with more pathways and arches leading deeper into the building. Presumably, there was much more to the Stronghold than he could see. 

There was also a helpful grate, leading into the sewer system. 

Zuko thanked Agni and ducked down into the dank tunnel. He was instantly assaulted with a scent so terrible than he flinched, waving his hands in front of his face. But it didn’t seem to do much good, and he just stuck with breathing through his mouth and pushed forward. He splashed through the thin layer of unidentifiable liquid, cutting underneath the fortress and towards the central pillar. 

A cacophonous blur of shouting made him stop underneath a grate, light shining down on the paint of his mask in stripes. 

Men— soldiers, rushing overhead. Zuko caught snippets of words.

_“—keep him restrained—” _

_“—He’s moving—”_

_“ —Head down—”_

_“—Admiral—” _

The thunderous sound of armored boots slowly petered off into the distance, and Zuko kept pace, rushing along underneath them. 

Were they transporting something? Someone?

Zuko reached a dead end, a clean slab of blank stone, and nearly screamed. The blank stone took up his entire vision, and he felt it all around him, pressing down. He was trapped. His breath came in quick spurts. He was alone. There was no exit. No one knew where he was. They had all forgotten him. Father had forgotten him. Father had thrown away the key. 

He leaned his hands on the wall, trembling. 

_“It is likely that the Stronghold will feel like a _prison_, Zuko.”_

Zuko wasn’t imprisoned. There were no chains on his wrists. 

_But it was the day of the new moon. They always took off his handcuffs on the day before the new moon._

There was a clear exit right behind him. He just needed to turn around and climb up through the grate, and he would be fine. He was not trapped. 

For some reason, he could not turn around. 

_Just do it! _he screamed at himself. _Just turn around!_

His own breath was loud in his ears. It wasn’t until he’d punched the wall hard enough to cut up his knuckles that he managed to turn himself around and make a break for the grate. 

In one graceful motion, he swung up into the base of a stairwell. Blood dripped down his hand, but he ignored it. He took the steps two at a time. 

He hid in an alcove as two soldiers marched down the stairs. 

“—some_ weird_ kid,” one soldier was saying to the other. 

“I’m not here to ask questions—” the other began, and then they both passed Zuko by and their voices faded down the stairwell. 

Zuko suspected that, for once in his life, he was in the right place at the right time. The most secure portion of the Stronghold must be at the top of the central tower. That was where they would take the Avatar. 

The top of the tower was swarming with soldiers. And not only soldiers— Yuyan, their eyes tattooed with the red mark of their prowess. Zuko didn’t stay long enough for their sharp eyes to catch him flitting through the halls. 

Something was going on, and Zuko wasn’t sure if he had the time to wait for the platoon to clear out. He perched nervously on a secluded windowsill, staring out at the grey sky, overlooking the forest for leagues all around. His uncle was down there, somewhere. 

He forced himself to wait. He may only have one chance, and he didn’t want to ruin it, like so many other things he had ruined in his life. 

Eventually, when the grey sky had seemed to darken an alarming amount, much of the platoon _did_ leave. With them, Zuko saw Zhao’s topknot, striding confidently down the corridor. 

“Assemble the troops,” Zhao ordered to no one in particular, his voice full of contented malice. “Today will be a day that no one will forget.”

Zuko scowled at his back. 

There were four soldiers left, standing in front of a set of deeply red, ornate double-doors. Zuko hadn’t realized how much he had missed Fire Nation architecture. 

When Zuko tossed out a stolen Fire Nation helmet, enticing one of the soldiers to break off from the group, he quickly set to work. 

After they were all trussed up, alive— Zuko couldn’t afford to kill them— there was nothing left to do other than open the doors. 

There he was. Zuko was right. 

There was the Avatar, arms and legs splayed on tight chains. 

The airbender looked terrible— his clothing ripped and torn, an odd bruise forming on his cheek. His face was downtrodden, introspective, but as soon as Zuko opened the door, he perked up, eyes wide and bright. 

“Uh,” the Avatar said, cocking his head, “Who’re you?”

That’s when Zuko’s inner fire started to change. 

_No, _he growled to himself, _No, not now!_

He ran towards the Avatar, brandishing his swords. 

The Avatar’s expression twisted in pure horror. 

His inner fire pulsed again, like a writhing worm inside his stomach, and Zuko stopped himself, inches from cutting the chains holding up the airbender’s arms. He lowered his swords to his side. 

The airbender cautiously opened his eyes. “I’m alive?”

“Yes,” Zuko said, and the airbender’s eyes widened. “But maybe not for long.”

“But Zhao said he was going to keep me alive!” 

“And you _trusted_ him?” Zuko growled. 

“Who _are _you?” the Avatar asked again, exasperated. 

“There’s no time,” Zuko spoke quickly. “I’ll come for you in the morning. Promise me you’ll stay alive.”

A slow panic made the Avatar break out in a sweat. “Wait— are you leaving?” He pulled feebly on his chains. “Don’t leave me here! I need to get back to my friends! They’re sick— they’re dying!”

The Water Tribe siblings. 

“They can last a night,” Zuko dismissed. 

“They can’t!” the airbender yelled, and his voice cracked. 

For a precious second, Zuko said nothing. Then he felt his inner fire start to turn green, and he knew his time was very close, now. 

“Where are they?” he demanded. 

The Avatar told him they had camped out in the abandoned ruins of a town, in the building at the top of the hill. Apparently, they needed to suck on the frozen frogs of a nearby stream. 

Zuko turned around and ran. 

He was at the door when he heard the Avatar yell, “Wait!” Zuko barely paused, and the Avatar’s words came out in a rush. “You’re Zuko, aren’t you?”

“_Don’t_ tell anyone that name, or I’ll kill you myself!” Zuko snapped, and he left the Avatar behind, imprisoned in Pohuai Stronghold. 

He was out of time. 

He barreled down the stairway, almost jumping straight from landing to landing. At one point, he encountered a soldier coming up the stairs, and Zuko jump kicked him in the face. The soldier fell down the steps, tumbling head over heels, and Zuko leaped straight over him. 

He once again lowered himself into the sewer, and the moment his feet splashed in the thin layer of unidentifiable liquid, he bent over, clutching at his stomach. His inner fire spun from green to blue to orange to purple to red. 

He couldn’t transform, not in the sewer, not in that enclosed space, but he was going to. He knew the feeling better than he knew his own face. 

For the first time in his life, Zuko did something he’d never considered doing before. 

He told the spirits _no._

He grabbed a stranglehold of his inner fire, and tried to force it back to a normal orange. It was like picking up lava. It hurt, a strangling, excruciating pain igniting every bone in his body. He must have screamed. 

But he didn’t turn into a dragon. 

Zuko forced himself to run. He heard soldiers rallying above ground, searching for an intruder. He got thirty feet before a cry rang out, “He’s in the sewers!”

When Zuko passed under another grate, a full spout of flame burst down against his mask. He rolled backwards, extinguishing the flames caught along his robe, mask and hair. 

Two soldiers dropped down into the sewers with him. 

Zuko didn’t think he could fight them. Motion was becoming extremely difficult. He felt his words slowly slipping away, language turning into a foreign, obscure object. 

He didn’t think as he pulled out his claws and tore the soldiers in two. 

_No, not his claws— swords. Those were his swords. _

The soldiers choked out some blood-coated words, Zuko’s swords still impaled in their armor, _“M-Monster.”_

Zuko tore out his swords—_ claws_— Zuko had claws, on his hands, and he realized that his nails were pointed and black, which they shouldn’t be. 

_Why shouldn’t they be? _

He pulled himself up through the grate, out into the open air. His inner fire was a torrent, raging at him, tearing at him. 

He was surrounded. 

“What _is_ it?” a soldier said, disturbed, keeping Zuko at a pike-length distance. 

“What if— what if it’s a _spirit_,” another one said back, voice hushed, carrying the same weapon, nervously pointing it at Zuko’s chest. 

_Fear. _Zuko smelt his fear, like the tangy aroma of sweat. 

Zuko dove at him, slicing his pike into ribbons and spinning and slashing his foot in his kneecap. The man cried out, dropping the handle from his pike. Zuko dove out of the way of the spearpoints darting for his exposed back, and then spun around, keeping low and tearing his swords into the nearest soldier. 

Fear was strong all around Zuko, now. They were all prey. Zuko couldn’t count how many there were, but he knew that he would defeat them all. Because they were pests, gnats darting at his face—

_Zuko wasn’t a dragon yet—_

“Open the gate!” came a shrill, terror-filled voice. It was a soldier, an older man with grey hair, and Zuko would have been able to pick out his rank but— 

_The pain, the horrible, terrible, pain. _

“We have to let the spirit out!” the same man screamed, “Open the gate!”

The wave of soldiers shifted uncertainly. Zuko held out his swords in front him, panting. There was smoke in his breath, and it curled out through the Blue Spirit’s eye slits and around the edges of the mask. 

One soldier fainted. 

A chorus started up, as one soldier after another began repeating some form of, “_Open the gate!”_

_“Open the spirits forsaken gate!”_

_“Open the frosted gate!”_

The large gate began to slowly open up. Zuko felt the whoosh of scents from the forest curling into the courtyard. He took a careful step back. 

The soldiers stayed where they were. 

He took another careful step. 

No one tried to follow him.

The lure of the forest was too great for him, then, and he turned his back and ran for the exit, every step eating ground, pounding away at the earth. He was free. He wasn’t trapped. His shaking grip on his inner fire began to loosen with every step he took, and one idea pounded through Zuko’s head like a mantra. 

_Don’t be seen. _

_Don’t be seen._

_Don’t be seen. _

He dove into the forest, and didn’t stop until every tree around him looked just like any other tree for leagues all around. Only then did he have enough control over his limbs to throw his scabbard, mask, and shoes away into the dirt, hearing them clatter against stone. 

The multi-colored fire came over him, and it was painful. Transforming had never been painful, not once in his life, so Zuko knew he had done something wrong by trying to delay it. Something very wrong. 

The spirits stole his body, and Zuko turned into a dragon. 

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko crouched over the shredded remains of his clothes, his fire uneasily settled in his stomach. The pain had stopped. His head peeked up above the tree line and he lowered it, keeping within the tree cover. He curled his wings tight against his back. 

He felt calm. The haze that had gone over his mind had vanished. 

Nervously, he checked his limbs for any abnormalities. He lifted his front claw and flexed it, long black talons gauging the earth. He checked his long tail, tapping anxiously against the ground. He unfurled a red wing, stretching it out to its full length and bringing it back in. 

Everything seemed to check out. 

Zuko flicked out his tongue to taste the air. A pig deer had walked past this area not too long ago. There was a meadow vole nest underneath the ground. Five lop-eared rabbits had fled the clearing when Zuko had come barreling in. Humans had followed a path far to Zuko’s right, where the smell of fish and algae caught in the back of his throat. A stream. 

None of which were the scents that Zuko wanted. He wanted the _charfire-tea-old-human. Woodsmoke-leaves. _

His uncle’s scent was faint, and it seemed to follow an odd path toward a place where Zuko hoped his uncle wasn’t. 

Zuko prayed to Agni that his uncle wasn’t planning on storming the Stronghold. 

He carefully picked up his scabbard and mask with his teeth. He couldn’t get a very good grip on his shoes and stared forlornly down at the small black objects. He would have to return for them. 

He bounded through the forest, every step a sinuous glide through the dark, his scales clicking through the night. His slitted golden eyes occasionally reflected back the starlight, and all animals steered clear out of his path. He tasted their fear like shivers in the air. 

Iroh’s scent was close, approaching him, and they collided in the forest, one dragon and one man dressed like a Fire Nation foot soldier. 

It looked like Zuko was too late to stop his uncle from storming the Stronghold. He had already done it. 

His uncle stumbled back and rubbed the back of his head, looking far up at Zuko. 

“Nephew!” he exclaimed. “You’re all right!”

Zuko lowered his head and dropped his mask and scabbard on the ground at his uncle’s feet. He leaned forward and gently batted his uncle on the forehead with his snout. 

“Oh, me?” Uncle said. “I just happened to find this set of armor in the woods—”

Zuko attempted to give him an unimpressed look. 

His uncle laughed nervously. “Someone may have happened to be wearing it at the time.”

Zuko huffed out a small spark at the ground. 

“Zuko,” Iroh sighed, suddenly weary, and he softly patted Zuko’s nose, since it was the only thing he could reach. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

Zuko reached out with his whisker and placed it on Iroh’s forehead. 

_An old man in a Fire Nation soldier’s armor, yelling, “Open the gate!”_

His uncle frowned. “You did not recognize me?”

_Confused. Pain. Trapped, the doors barred. _

His brows furrowed even deeper. “I am worried about you, Nephew. You looked— different in there. Is everything all right?”

He was not sure. He pulled away his whisker, shifting back on his hind legs. No, he was not sure if everything was all right. He tasted the air again. His uncle seemed to be all right, at least. He did not smell any of Iroh’s blood, but someone else’s. 

He wanted his uncle to know about his meeting with the Avatar, and he quickly shared it with him. 

Iroh stroked his beard. “That is likely how the young man was captured in the first place. He went to the river to find these frozen frogs for his friends.”

Zuko lowered himself to the ground and jerked his head in some approximation of a “_C’mon.”_

Strapping Zuko’s scabbard and his mask to his waist, Iroh climbed up onto the dragon’s neck, holding onto his horns. 

Zuko stood up and ran through the forest, Uncle secure on his back.

* * *

—

* * *

Iroh had seen many things in his long life. Many wondrous and horrifying things. He was both happy and unhappy to say that his nephew was among them. 

When Zuko became a dragon, the only thing that tied him to his mortal form was his scar, a mark that followed him no matter where he went. Iroh agonized over how it must haunt him, how every glance at himself was also a glance at his downfall. But it was more than just a reminder of his downfall— it was a reminder of his father. 

Iroh knew Zuko didn’t like looking into mirrors. 

It looked like it was going to be a long, very dark night. Iroh’s stolen armor did not quite fit the way it was supposed to, and it chafed uncomfortably. Or maybe armor had simply grown more uncomfortable in the time he had been away from the service. Who could tell?

Zuko took them on a path that let them recollect all their supplies, meagre as they were, and loop back around to the river which supposedly held the frozen frogs. Iroh had never heard of such a cure, and he prayed that the young Avatar had not been misled. 

Zuko stood guard, a ferocious thirty-foot scaled predator of pure muscle, towering far above Iroh’s head as the old man waded into the murky cold depths of the stream.

One thing was true— at least his nephew never became predictable. 

Oddly enough, there were some frozen frogs at the bottom of the stream. He wondered at how such an odd adaptation could occur. He wondered if they were dead. 

“How many do you think we need?” he asked the enormous fire-breathing creature that was also his nephew. 

Of course, Zuko could say nothing. Iroh saw his large, reflective eyes slowly blink.

“At least two,” Iroh hummed, mostly to himself. But he wanted his nephew to feel included. “I hope they are not poisonous!”

Zuko did his approximation of a snort. A puff of smoke curled out of his maw. 

Iroh ended up taking four and placing them in one of their emptied bags. Holding it over his shoulder, Zuko lowered himself to the ground and Iroh once again climbed onto his back. 

Iroh held tightly to the horns in front of him as Zuko clambered to his feet. He expected his nephew to take off at a calm walk. He didn’t. He started running, wings extending fully out on each side, and Iroh desperately wanted to yell at him and ask what on earth he thought he was doing— but they both knew. 

They took off into the sky, air streaming past Iroh’s face, blowing through his hair. Every flap of Zuko’s wings was like the slap of the wind off the ocean. The ground shrunk underneath them, a dark carpet of earth and trees, tiny pinpricks of torches lighting the boundaries of Pohuai Stronghold, which seemed so much smaller than it had looked previously. 

Iroh smiled in a delight soured by a sliver of worry, which wormed its way into his mind. Zuko was taking a risk, taking to the air. And he hadn’t discussed it with Iroh. Not that he was surprised— it would be an odd day indeed if his nephew acted with caution and prudence. 

Zuko snarled, a low rumble that Iroh felt deep in his bones, much like thunder. 

“You know where to go better than I!” Iroh called. 

Iroh trusted his nephew. He would know where to go. And Iroh was right. They swooped low over the dim shadows of a ruined town. Iroh thought that it must have been beautiful, at one time. There was a lot of love placed into each statue, which now floundered in neglect, vines crawling over their rock faces. He wished he knew what had happened to these people that had pushed them from their home. 

But home was more than a place.

At the top of the hill, there was a half-collapsed building, at once graceful and sublime, but now only good enough to shelter a person from rain. There were no lamps lit, no fire to warm the body, but a large white form could be made out in the dark. 

Zuko landed outside the building, wings flapping in great bursts, kicking up dust in a large cloud around them. He crashed to the ground with a heavy thunk, a sound anyone could hear inside the ruins. 

The dust cleared, and no one came to greet them. Zuko lowered himself to the ground and Iroh clambered off his back, carrying all their supplies. Iroh did not think there was much use pretending that he was not Fire Nation, considering he was literally wearing their armor, so he lit a strong flame in his hand to get a better picture of the room. 

The Water Tribe siblings, as his nephew liked to call them, did not look well. The young man and girl were curled against the side of their bison, their faces flushed and breathing labored. An odd amount of paraphernalia was littered around them, small chipped bowls and vases, dull jewelry and bent cutlery. 

As Iroh approached them, the young man’s eyes settled deliriously upon him. “Stupid Fire Lord,” he muttered. “You think you can take _me? _Sokka of the Water Tribe?”

“Oh no,” Iroh said. “I would never dare.”

“That’s _right,_” the young man huffed, satisfied. “Don’t mess with me.”

Iroh noticed that Zuko had pulled himself halfway into the building, his head peeking over Iroh’s shoulder, trying to stay clear of the calmly resting bison. 

“Momo?” the young woman whispered. “Wow, you got really big, Momo.”

Iroh exchanged a look with his nephew. Or rather, Iroh turned and met his nephew’s large golden eye. The Water Tribe siblings were clearly very deep into their delirium. That could work to their advantage, if they did not want to be seen. 

But Iroh was not sure that he did not want to be seen. 

He started marking an area for a campfire, sweeping the stone clean and gathering some rubble to form a circle. 

“Would you go gather some firewood, Nephew?” Iroh asked. 

Zuko gave him a sour look, his eyes half-lidded. 

“They won’t be getting any better in this chill,” he reasoned, hand on his hip. “I think it will do us humans all some good.”

Zuko huffed some smoke into Iroh’s face and then slunk out of the room, every step a muted thud. Iroh smiled and shook his head. 

He walked back over to the sick children. 

“Water, Momo,” the girl whispered. “We need— water.”

Iroh quickly fetched his own canteen, as well as the bag of frozen frogs, and offered her the canteen. “Here you go,” he murmured. “Everything will soon be all right.”

She feebly took hold of the bottle, taking careful sips. 

“Thanks, stupid Fire Lord,” the young man sniffed from Iroh’s other side. “You’re a real pal.”

Iroh’s smile turned sad. “I would not say that.”

He opened the bag of frozen frogs and pulled one out. What did the Avatar say? They had to suck on them? Well, he supposed he had no other choice. He carefully placed one in each of their mouths.

“The Avatar said you should suck on them!” Iroh said cheerfully. 

Deliriously, both of the Water Tribe siblings seemed to take his advice. That was good of them. 

Zuko returned with a large rumbling crash, a sound like a falling tree, and the cracking of a thousand branches. Iroh confusedly turned around, and saw that his nephew had brought him an entire tree, the trunk clenched between his fangs. 

Zuko dropped the tree with a loud bang on top of Iroh’s small ring of rocks. 

Iroh studiously kept his expression blank. He looked at Zuko. Zuko looked at him, settling on his stomach on the ground, curling his tail around his side. 

“Are you going to light it,” Iroh managed. “Or shall I?”

With a low, surly grumble, Zuko spit out a low stream of multi-colored fire, which caught on the end of the trunk where he had torn it out of the ground. 

Iroh desperately kept himself from laughing. “This reminds me of a proverb,” he began, drawing himself up. 

He watched as Zuko dramatically rolled onto his side, covering his face with his wing. 

“One mustn't trample the meadow in search of one flower, Nephew,” he lectured. 

* * *

—

* * *

Iroh monitored the sick children as Zuko grumpily dragged his tree trunk from the room. Outside, he heard the tell-tale crackling sound of his nephew tearing the tree into smaller, more manageable pieces. Iroh wondered if he enjoyed the moment to take out his aggression. 

Eventually, as he knew they must, the frogs ceased to be frozen. Iroh was slightly shocked to find that they were still alive, and they wiggled out of the Water Tribe children’s mouths, leaping off and splatting on the ground. 

Both of the children tried to sit up against their bison, spitting and hacking profusely. Iroh generously handed them his water pouch, which the young man greedily snatched from his hand. 

A lemur flew into the room and deposited a rusted iron crown on the young woman’s head. It chittered once at her, before hiding on the back of the bison. 

“Momo?” she said huskily, and her weary eyes finally caught sight of Iroh with a sense of clarity. Her entire body tensed, her hands turning into fists. “Sokka!” she yelled. 

The young man finished his drink, slowly lowering Iroh’s canteen, and immediately started coughing, choking on the words, “F-Fire Nation!”

Iroh held out his hands peaceably. “I know you are very confused, but I promise you that I owe you no harm.” As he expected, neither of them looked very appeased. “I know you are very tired, and you should both rest. Your sickness has been very grave.”

“Where’s Aang?” the young woman weakly demanded. 

“He is safe, for now,” Iroh lied. “But nothing can be done for him while both of you are feeling ill. Rest is your best medicine.”

She tried to pull herself to her feet, and the young man was not long behind her. 

Iroh did not want to have to restrain them. He pushed them back against their bison in one too easy motion. “You are both in no condition to be moving,” he ordered. “I will keep watch and make sure no one else may bother you. Please rest.”

“I’ll rest when I know what’s going on,” the young man barked. 

“The Avatar sent me here to help you,” Iroh lied easily. “He has been held up, and he did not want his friends to suffer any longer.”

Perhaps because their illness was still very close behind, and exhaustion tugged at their strings, but neither of them sought to argue with him any longer. Their breathing slowly evened out, their eyes fluttering closed, and both of them settled into an uneasy slumber. 

Iroh sighed. Now, there was only to wait until morning. 

* * *

— 

* * *

Zuko feared the morning in a way he had felt only a few times in his life. The morning after Azula had burst into his room— _Dad’s going to kill you— _the morning after his father had visited him in his cell, all those years ago. Morning came with the bright shine of Agni’s rays, and it came down on his naked human skin.

That was good. Zuko had transformed back. He was a man, again. He had thought, for crazed, anxious hours, that something had gone wrong with his curse, and that he would never become a person for as long as he lived. 

He quickly wrapped himself in the blanket that his uncle had knowingly left at his side, and went to go find the older man. Both of them stayed a good distance away from the Water Tribe siblings’ camp, as neither of them wanted Zuko’s curse to be known, not by anyone. 

They met behind the ruins of a building of cracked arches and pillars, and Zuko noticed that Iroh had a blue bundle of fabric in his hands. Then he noticed Iroh’s expression, which was shocked, but quickly maneuvered into neutrality. 

Zuko narrowed his eyes, fear lining his throat. He knew that something had happened to him physically when he’d tried to delay his transformation. But he didn’t know what. And judging by Iroh’s expression, it hadn’t gone away.

“Well,” his uncle began, clearing his throat. “We can get you a bandanna. Or a hat. A lovely large hat!”

Zuko felt his blood run cold. He didn’t think it was his _hair_ that was the problem. 

“Some gloves,” Iroh continued. “Can’t do much about the eyes. Unless we get you some glasses! I hear that’s all the rage with the ladies, these days.” He nodded wisely. “You’d be quite the lady killer, Nephew!”

_“What,”_ Zuko growled, “_in Agni’s name_ is wrong with me?”

“Oh, your teeth,” Iroh winced. 

Zuko slammed his hand up to his mouth, feeling his teeth. 

Oh no. They were sharper. Longer. He reached up and felt his head, and right above his forehead were two horns, spikes jutting out of his head. He consoled himself with the fact that at least they weren’t that big as he started to hyperventilate.

“Zuko,” Uncle said, rushing forward and gently repeating his name. “Zuko— it will be all right. This is likely to be a temporary change.”

“Temporary,” Zuko hissed out. 

“Yes, temporary,” Iroh said. “You looked much worse back at the Stronghold.”

“_Worse?” _he screeched. 

Iroh wrapped his arm around Zuko’s shoulders and forced him to sit down on a crumbling stairway. Zuko didn’t want to sit down. He wanted to look normal again. He wanted to _be _normal. His uncle pressed his blue bundle into Zuko’s arms. 

“I stole a spare set of clothes out of that young man, Sokka’s, bag.”

Zuko clenched the clothing in his fists and noticed that his nails were long and pointed and black, much like they were when Zuko was a dragon, much like they were back in the Stronghold, in that hectic run to safety. 

“Don’t dodge the frosting question, Uncle. What did I look like?”

Iroh looked up and away at the sky. “You look nothing like that now.”

“That wasn’t what I asked,” he said hotly. 

His uncle sighed. He clenched his hands behind his back. He followed a cloud with his eyes. Eventually, his uncle slowly admitted, “Imagine, if you will, a dragon and person, combined into one.”

Zuko was dead silent. He opened his mouth to say something, and it took him a few tries before he managed, “Did I have scales?”

“You did.”

“And horns?”

“Much larger ones. Almost exactly the ones you have when you are a dragon.”

“And— and a tail? Wings?”

His uncle winced, “Indeed.”

Zuko was struck with the sudden horror that he had a tail now, and reached and felt along his lower back. There was nothing. He was safe from that specific dishonor. 

He leaned forward and placed his face in his hands. He groaned. 

“It is not that bad,” Uncle consoled. “It is hardly noticeable. I am sure in a few days’ time, it will be— ”

_“We - don’t - have - a few days!”_ he growled, enunciating each word through his grounded together jaw. He felt his front top canines come down entirely over his bottom teeth. He wondered if he was going to cut his mouth. 

Zuko suddenly popped his head up. “Get me my knife,” he said. “It’s in my boot.”

His uncle looked instantly wary. “Why?”

He let out an aggravated breath. “I’m going to cut the frosted horns off, what else?”

Uncle shook his head. His voice was coldly serious, when he spoke, “If you think I am going to stand by and let you harm yourself like that, Nephew, you are mistaken. These changes could just as easily go away on their own.”

“Or they’ll get worse!” Zuko yelled, throwing out his hand. 

“We do not know,” Iroh said. “Because we do not know, I say that we wait and gather more information. We mustn’t take any actions that cannot be easily undone, especially not when it comes to your health.”

Zuko hung his head, hair pooling down to shadow his face. 

“The Avatar is still trapped inside Pohuai Stronghold,” Iroh gently reminded him. Zuko didn’t need a reminder. It was all he could think about. “Get dressed. We still have some guests to entertain.”

* * *

  
—

* * *

The Water Tribe boy’s clothes were slightly too tight on him, since Zuko was taller and more muscled. His robe was also blue, sleeveless, and cut a low V on his chest. Zuko didn’t know how anyone lived like this. Blue was a horrible color. 

Zuko met his uncle back at the top of the hill, in the building he remembered as being much smaller than it currently was. The two Water Tribe siblings hadn’t moved from where they laid on the great white beast. Bison. Uncle told him it was a bison. A flying bison, something that the airbenders had used to ride, over a hundred years ago. 

Uncle sat around his fire, heating water in a small teapot which he took from one of the bags the Water Tribe people had strewn around. 

Zuko busied himself with putting on his boots and tying on his scabbard. Uncle slid his mask towards him, and gestured to his head. 

Was Zuko supposed to use his opera mask as a hat?

His uncle gave him a look, and yes, apparently, he was.

Zuko found himself cursing every spirit he could name as he tied his mask on and slid it to the top of his head. A hood would work much better. _Anything _would work better. 

The Avatar’s lemur flew over and landed on his uncle’s shoulder. His uncle gave the animal a small scratch. 

“I’m going to wake them up,” Zuko announced. 

“Are you sure that is a good idea?” his uncle murmured. 

“Yes,” he declared, “Because we’re going to use them.”

A few steps later, and Zuko found himself standing in front and between the Water Tribe siblings. The Water Tribe boy drooled in his sleep. The bison was less than a foot away, his great furred form gently rising and falling to the tune of his breath. 

Zuko kicked the Water Tribe boy’s feet inside his sleeping bag. He waited, but the boy did little else other than snort in his sleep. He kicked him again. The other boy turned his head. 

Zuko went and got his water skin and poured it directly onto the Water Tribe boy’s face. 

The other boy instantly sat up, spluttering and coughing. He rubbed his bloodshot, tired blue eyes, first taking in Zuko’s feet, then slowly crawling upwards until he landed on Zuko’s face, his own face slowly morphing into dawning horror. He let out a single, high-pitched screech. 

The Water Tribe girl was definitely waking up, now.

“Zuko?” the boy spluttered. “Why are you wearing my _clothes?_”

“I lost my old ones,” Zuko said. 

“You _lost your—” _the other boy seemed at a loss for words. His voice was strangely modulated when he said, “Does that, like, happen often?”

“Yeah,” Zuko said. 

The Water Tribe boy blinked. They stared at each other, at a momentary loss for words. 

The Water Tribe girl then threw her rusted iron crown at his head. Zuko managed to catch it, and he turned to her, her face twisted in fury. 

“What do you think you’re doing here?” she demanded. 

That seemed to kick the Water Tribe boy’s brain into gear. His brows furrowed, and he started to pull himself out of his sleeping bag. “Yeah— how did you find us? Where’s Aang?”

“What did you do to him?” the girl snarled, all in quick succession. 

Zuko found himself leaning away from them and quickly righted his posture. “The Avatar has been captured by the Fire Nation,” he explained. 

“And by Fire Nation, you don’t mean _you?” _the boy questioned, stumbling to his feet. 

“Not me,” he agreed. He crossed his arms. “My uncle and I are not on good terms with the Fire Nation.” That was putting it lightly. “We don’t work with them.”

“But you _are _Fire Nation,” the girl spat. 

“It doesn’t matter what I am!” he snarled back at her. 

“Yes, it does!” she fired back. 

“Guys,” the Water Tribe boy said, kneading his forehead. “Katara. Let’s just hear them out. We’ve been sick all this time, and they’ve obviously been here all this time, and they haven’t done anything. I don’t think they’re going to do anything now.”

The girl was standing as well. “That doesn’t explain how he _knew _Aang was captured, or how he knew how to find us.”

His uncle took that moment to call out, “Would anyone like some tea?”

Both the boy and the girl jerked their heads to the sitting form behind Zuko. Maybe his uncle waved. Zuko was not sure. 

“I thought you were a fever dream!” the boy called out. 

“There’s a Fire Nation soldier sitting right there, Zuko!” the girl yelled, pointing at his uncle. “How are we supposed to believe that you’re not working with them?”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “The armor,” he hissed, “is stolen.”

“Nobody wants any tea?” Iroh asked, a little forlorn. 

They found themselves sitting around the campfire they had made, Zuko and his uncle on one side, Sokka and Katara on the other, all clutching small clay cups, filled with jasmine leaf juice. After wasting his time trying to heal them, and after considering how he planned to use them, Zuko figured he might as well care enough about their existence to use their names. 

The Water Tribe siblings didn’t take a sip until Iroh had taken a sip (after which he sighed, expounding on the restorative effects of a good cup of tea on an old body).

“It’s not poisoned,” Zuko snapped. 

Katara glared at him. He glared back. 

Sokka took a noisy sip, as if to prove a point that he was not scared of them. He made a surprised sound. “This is really good.” 

Katara then felt obligated to take a sip, wherein she admitted, grudgingly, “It’s pretty good.”

Before his uncle could launch into a conversation about tea-making, Zuko laid his own cup on the ground and leaned forward on his knees. “The Avatar, your friend, has been captured by Admiral Zhao. He’s being held in Pohuai Stronghold.”

Sokka was in the midst of another sip, which he dramatically spat out, coughing. 

Katara had a tight grip on her own cup. “Why are you telling us this?”

Zuko leaned back on his heels. “Because we’re going to break him out.”

Sokka gathered himself and pointed across the campfire. “Yeah, see, _that_ I don’t trust. This ‘we’ you keep talking about. Listen, thanks for the info. Really appreciate it. But last time I remembered, you tried to dice Aang into tiny little pieces.” 

“I wasn’t going to _kill _him,” Zuko grumbled. “Just maim him.”

Sokka threw his arms up into the air. “I don’t know what to do with this guy!”

“You invade our camp,” Katara began, her voice coldly furious, “Attack all of us, try to drag Aang off somewhere, nearly kill him, and now you expect us to work together?” 

There was a poignant silence. Zuko wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. “Yes?” he tried. 

Sokka and Katara exchanged equally outraged looks. 

“What my nephew means to say,” Iroh said, swooping in. “Is that we have already broken into the Stronghold. The defenses were too strong for us to break out your young friend.” The lie slipped easily off his tongue. “But, perhaps if we work together, we might just be strong enough.”

“Pohuai Stronghold is one of the Fire Nation’s most fortified bases,” Zuko explained. “It’s guarded by an elite group of archers called the Yuyan, who can strike a butterfly’s wings from a hundred yards away, _without_ killing it.”

The Water Tribe siblings nervously glanced at each other. Zuko realized how tired they must all feel. He and his uncle hadn’t slept at all last night, and both of the Water Tribe siblings had just come off a near-fatal illness. 

Sokka leaned forward and sighed, tapping the ground, “All right. I get it. Big tough base. Hit me with the layout.”

* * *

—


	5. Wanted: The Blue Spirit, Ghost - Part II

Sokka jutted down at Zuko’s drawing with a stick. “Breaking into a base a second time is a million times harder than the first.” He pointed to the only two gates on the walls. “Security’s going to be on the lookout. These archers are going to be along the walls.” Sokka drew a line around the square corners of the base. “That means we can’t just take Appa and fly inside. If they’re as good as you say, they might shoot his eyes out or something terrible like that.”

Appa groaned, a huff of air fluttering all their clothes. 

“But I still think the air is our best shot,” Sokka finished. “Once we get to Aang, we get him his glider. He’ll be able to fly out and deflect all the arrows trying to take him down.”

Zuko frowned down at the ground, crossing his arms. He didn’t expect the Water Tribe peasant to be so good at strategy. 

“That’s all well and good,” Katara said, “But how do we get it to him?”

“Disguises,” Sokka shrugged. “It worked for Zuko’s uncle.”

Iroh smiled noncommittally. 

“Uncle’s cover was blown the minute he left the base,” Zuko snapped. “They’re going to be checking for imposters.”

“They’re also going to check supply wagons,” Sokka replied, “It’s a bright, sunny day. It’s not going to be easy to hide. So where does that leave us?” Sokka stroked his chin. “The sewers,” he announced. 

“They’re going to be barred off at the walls,” Zuko said, rolling his eyes. “They wouldn’t leave such an obvious weakness lying around.”

“Ah, but you see,” Sokka said in the tone of voice that suggested he knew something that Zuko didn’t. He clapped his hand on his sister’s shoulder. “We have a waterbender.” 

Zuko rolled his eyes. He realized that he was doing that a lot. “I don’t see how that’s supposed to help.”

“Yeah, Sokka, how _is_ that supposed to help?” Katara asked. 

“Ye of little faith,” the Water Tribe boy sniffed. “How cold can you make your water?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know— I’d never tried.”

“What about twice as cold as the coldest winter night?” Sokka grinned. 

* * *

—

* * *

The four of them trudged through the sewer. Sokka carried Aang’s staff, leaning it back against his shoulder. Outside the walls, the sewer smelled impossibly worse, and the thin layer of unidentifiable liquid was more like a foot deep, soaking through Zuko’s boots and the bottom of his stolen pants. 

It was dark, and when Zuko lit a fire in his hand, both of the Water Tribe siblings shot him suspicious looks. But Zuko barely took note of them, as surprised as he was by his fire. He was so enraptured that he stopped walking in the middle of the sewer and his uncle nearly ran into his back. 

“Nephew?” Iroh murmured. 

Zuko shook his head. He had thought, for a second, that his fire had been a different color. He must have been wrong. He quickly started walking again. A low orange glow pervaded the dark, shining against the milky fluid they waded through. 

They walked for ten minutes before Sokka blurted, as if he couldn’t help himself, “Why are you wearing a mask on your head?”

“Why do all your clothes smell like fish?” Zuko fired back at him. 

“I swear, Katara,” the boy muttered to his sister, who was ahead of them all, instead of answering. “This guy’s insane.”

“He is,” she huffed, glaring back at him and tossing her braid over her shoulder. 

“I can hear you, you know,” Zuko grumbled, kicking the disgusting fluid a bit more aggressively than he had to. 

“Maybe we can convince him that he’s just hearing the voices inside his mind,” Sokka mock whispered to Katara. 

“It’d work,” Katara mock whispered back, her mouth curling, “if not for the fact that we make too much sense.” They both laughed. 

Zuko had never wanted to stab someone so much in his life. His hand wrapped tightly around the hilt of his dao. No, he couldn’t stab them. He was using them to get to the Avatar. Their plan would be ruined without the waterbender. 

He kept tight control over his fire as they continued deep into the sewer, the liquid gradually lessening until they came up to what must be the walls of the Stronghold, judging by the thick, heavy metal grate made of pure Fire Nation steel. Zuko would be very hard pressed to melt it, since that type of metal could withstand some truly extraordinary temperatures. 

But apparently not in the other direction. 

“When certain types of metals, like steel and iron, get really cold — like really really cold,” the Water Tribe boy had explained. “They become brittle. If you smash them with a club or a sword, _bam_, they crack. They don’t bend. _That’s _our key inside.”

Zuko walked forward and peered through to the other side of the grate. His fire petered out into darkness, where anyone could be lurking. 

“They know I used the sewers before,” he whispered, suddenly feeling the urge to keep his voice down. 

“That’s fine,” Sokka whispered back, sharing in the same feeling. “We’re ready for them. Katara?”

Zuko stepped away from the grate, standing as far away as he could reasonably get away with, next to his uncle. 

She bit her lip. “This a lot more than we practiced with, Sokka.”

Sokka gave her a thumbs up. “You got this.” He turned to Zuko and Iroh. “Men, got any assurances?”

Zuko scowled, “Don’t mess it up, peasant.”

Iroh smiled, “Trust in your abilities.”

Sokka rolled his eyes. “I miss Aang,” he lamented. 

Katara shot Zuko a glare before she turned her back on them and began sweeping her arms in a balanced motion. The dirty fluid got pulled like the waves of the ocean, and in one sudden push covered the entire grate. Katara swung her arms down in one swift pull, and the water began to crackle, ice glittering in Zuko’s fire. 

But instead of stopping the motion, Katara repeated it, pulling the ice cooler and cooler. Nothing really seemed to happen. Sweat beaded on Katara’s brow. Her breath became audible, and an odd fog came out from her mouth, like the white cloud of breath formed on a cold winter day. 

For several long seconds, Zuko wondered what Sokka was waiting for. Ice was ice. 

With one strong swing, Sokka brought his club down on the grate, and the metal cracked like graphite, breaking off into tiny shards which sunk into the liquid lining the sewer. He swung again, trying to break a large enough hole for them to walk through. 

Katara collapsed against the sewer wall. She wiped her brow. She shot Zuko a smug look. “How’s_ that _for not messing it up.”

A small voice inside his head said that he was impressed, but he crushed the voice like an ant under his boot. “I expected you to fail,” he said coldly. “You’re a completely untrained waterbender. It’s a miracle you can bend a raindrop.”

She gave him a look so full of hatred that he was sure she was going to try to rip his limbs off. 

“Everyone shut up and let’s go,” Sokka ordered, and he slunk through the opening, holding the Avatar’s staff. Together, they pulled themselves inside Pohuai Stronghold. 

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko and the Avatar’s friends had one united goal, and it was to get the Avatar out of Zhao’s hands. Other than that, they could not be more diametrically opposed. Zuko was sure that the Water Tribe siblings had made some secret plans, and Zuko had made some as well, but for now, Zuko played along as best as he could.

Once they were inside, every grate they passed under put them on edge. They no longer talked, and they took careful and quiet steps through the thin layer of sewage. 

The sewer line broke off in an intersection which presumably went all throughout the base. It was time for them to split off. Half of them would keep straight, heading directly for the central tower, where they would cause a sewage overflow, bringing the attention of the many guards that must be surrounding the building holding the Avatar. 

That would be Katara and Iroh. 

The other half of the group would divert off the intersection, finding and locating a pair of soldiers they could subdue and use as disguises. 

That would be Zuko and Sokka. 

Nobody in their group was happy with the split. But Katara was too slight to pass as a soldier, and Iroh’s disguise had already been exposed. There was no other choice, and they all unhappily made peace with that fact. 

Zuko made eye contact with his uncle and nodded. He would be safe. 

Sokka did a similar motion with his sister, and then the two boys turned right while Katara and his uncle continued straight. 

They ran until they saw sunlight shine down through a grate, dappled light glittering on liquid. Zuko was unfamiliar with this area of the sewer. He had no idea what was above them, but they needed to know. 

As one, they listened for the tread of armored boots. They heard nothing distinctive, besides the distant white noise of talking and moving wagons. 

Zuko didn’t wait for the Water Tribe boy’s opinion as he ran forward and leaped. His hand easily caught the rung of the grate, but instead of pulling himself up, he peered up at the area as best as he could. 

It was in the middle of an open courtyard. There were soldiers training not too far away, each paired off in a mock battle. A soldier of higher rank— Captain— looked on. A man with dull brown side-burns. 

If Zuko followed the trajectory of the sewer, it led to a covered walkway overlooking the courtyard. Zuko let go of the grate, landing with gently bended knees, liquid splashing up in a ring. 

Sokka gave him an arch look. He whispered, “Warn a guy next time, will ya?”

Zuko didn’t spare him a look as he continued running through the sewer. After a moment, Sokka turned and followed him.

The next grate was more promising. Again, they paused and listened. When the sound of people remained distant, Zuko made another jump for the grate. He swung in the air once, peeking above ground, and decided that it wasn’t going to get any better. There was an archway that would cover their exit from the field. 

After he had pulled himself up, Zuko reached down and took the airbender’s glider from Sokka, and the other boy jumped and caught the grate much like Zuko had done, but with much less grace. With a huff Sokka pulled himself out of the sewer, and Zuko dragged him into cover. 

The archway was not quite as wide as Zuko would have wanted, and they were forced to press together, their arms flush. 

They had barely a moment’s respite before they heard someone coming down the walkway. 

Zuko quickly darted his eyes around for a secluded area to knock them out. If they dashed out into the open, they could make it to a building with sliding doors on their left. If he was fast and silent, he knew he could make it. 

Zuko belatedly realized that he wasn’t working alone. He jerked his arm into Sokka’s side and nodded his head at the building. Zuko brought his finger up to his lips. Silent. 

He moved, his pace sure and stealthy. Despite his bright blue clothing, despite his mask, and despite the glider held in his hand, if he was out of view before the motion caught in the corner of their eyes, he would be safe long enough to break into the building. 

From the next pillar over, he made eye contact with his unwilling partner. Sokka’s eyes seemed wide, almost panicking. 

The soldiers were approaching. Either Sokka would follow him, or their cover would be blown. 

Sokka ran. He nearly crashed into Zuko, but Zuko caught his arm and tugged him at the sliding door of the building. Clearly the Water Tribe boy had no idea of stealth. Zuko would have to drag him around like an untrained iguana parakeet. 

They burst inside the door into an empty barracks. Small cots littered the floor, along with trunks, small shelves, and half-wall partitions. Zuko dragged Sokka behind one of the half-wall partitions, which blocked off the rear of the barracks from the front. Zuko bent down and tugged Sokka down as well. 

Once Sokka was in position, Zuko quickly let go of him. The other boy rubbed his arm, flexing his wrist, as if Zuko had hurt him. “Ow,” Sokka mouthed at him. 

Zuko sent him a look that he hoped translated as, “Get over yourself.”

They froze as they heard the sliding door of the barracks click. Some heavy footsteps. Zuko counted three. 

A gruff voice began, “You better not be lying.”

“Why would I lie?” said another, voice flippant. “Stuff’s right here, buddy boy.”

They began walking toward the left side of the barracks, on Zuko’s right. They hadn’t moved to the back of the barracks, yet, so Zuko remained hidden. This was his chance to take them out, quietly and quickly. 

In the barest of whispers, Zuko said, “Wait here.” He passed the glider back to Sokka. 

Zuko stood up, grabbing a blanket from one of the cots, and stalked up behind the three men. None of them were wearing their helmets, and only one of them carried one under their arm. It was the thin man, leading the group. A very large man was in the back, hulking in his armor, and the other one was fairly average-looking. 

The three men suddenly stopped as the thin man leading them spun around, pointing at a chest at the base of a cot, “Right here gentle— Whoa!”

Zuko wrapped his blanket around the large soldier’s head and pulled it tight, stopping the man from screaming and cutting off his air supply. The man’s beefy arms struggled against the open air, and Zuko shoved his foot into the back of his knees and used his blanket to slam the man’s head into the wall. 

The thin man was scrambling for his weapon— a scimitar. The other man had settled back into a standard firebending pose, a pose taught to Zuko when he was six. 

Before the man managed to get any firebending off, Sokka ran over and smashed him over the head with his club. He dropped like a lead rock, armor clattering on the ground. 

The thin man tried to run and Sokka threw his boomerang, which caught him straight in the back of his head. 

Zuko and Sokka stood over the unconscious and battered bodies of three men. 

“_Wait__ here_,” Sokka said in a mocking imitation of Zuko’s voice.

“I could’ve taken them,” Zuko hissed, rolling the large soldier onto his back. He started ripping the blanket he stole and stuffed a small piece in the man’s mouth before tying another longer piece around his head. 

“I don’t doubt that,” Sokka grunted, pulling the armor off the firebender, starting with the shoulder piece. “But at least have a _little _faith in me, would you?”

Zuko grunted noncommittally. 

It took them too long to properly strip and tie all three men. Sokka wore the armor of the thin man and Zuko donned the armor of the firebender. There was only one helmet, and Zuko snatched it. 

“I _need_ to wear this,” he told Sokka, and it was for multiple reasons. Zuko looked like a monster, first of all. Zhao also knew his face. 

“Zhao knows who I am!” Sokka hissed back. Oh. It looked like Zuko was not the only one with that problem. 

“You’ll look fine at a glance,” Zuko dismissed. Then his mouth curved into a smirk. “Unless you want to try to take it from me?” he taunted, holding out the helmet. 

Sokka punched him in the shoulder. “Jerk.”

Zuko continued smirking. He waited until Sokka had turned away, opening up the trunk that the three soldiers had been looking for, peering curiously inside at bottles of alcohol, before Zuko removed the mask from his head and quickly slipped on the helmet. 

Sokka turned back just in time to see Zuko burning the Blue Spirit mask in his hand. 

“Can’t leave evidence,” Zuko explained. Ash gathered in his palm. He wiped it off onto the ground and kicked it under a cot. 

Sokka raised an eyebrow. “Useful.”

They hid the bodies by tugging them up onto cots and covering them with blankets. From a distance, they looked like they were sleeping. It would have to do. 

“Follow my lead,” Zuko said as they walked back toward the exit. “Keep your back straight and don’t make eye contact with anyone. Keep an eye out for another helmet.”

In stride, they walked out into the open air. Out on the field, soldiers continued to train. A komodo rhino pulled a wagon on the far side of the yard. 

They moved at a swift yet reasonable pace. As they neared the central pavilion, soldiers became more and more common, and soon it became apparent that there was some problem with the sewers, and some intruder’s activity was likely suspect. 

Zuko and Sokka’s eyes met. 

The chaos was such that it didn’t matter if two more soldiers started running toward the fray. Zuko and Sokka split off just a tad too early for a soldier who was really aiming to search for the intruders. They headed towards the tower, quickly marching inside and making for the staircase. 

They had made it four steps before the tell-tale bark of Admiral Zhao’s voice crawled down to them. 

“ —in Agni’s name is going on,” Zhao was saying, and the loud clanking of footsteps could only mean that he wasn’t alone. 

Zuko and Sokka quickly backpedaled, running back outside the building and turning a corner. They nervously peeked around the side of the tower, watching as Zhao emerged in all his smug glory, followed by a retinue of five. Zhao turned his head, surveying the area, and they ducked back around the corner. 

They listened, every muscle tensed, as Zhao turned and walked off in their opposite direction. 

Zuko and Sokka heaved a breath of relief at almost the exact same time. 

It was short lived. 

“What are you two pieces of dung _doing!_” a deep voice barked. 

Zuko and Sokka slowly turned around, each hoping that the slower they moved, the less real the voice would become. It was the Army captain with dull-brown hair, glaring at them with his hands on his hips. 

“Stop lollygagging and get to searching!” the captain yelled, gesturing sharply. “We don’t have all day! Someone could be here to break out the Avatar!”

“Yes, sir,” Zuko snapped, elbowing Sokka in his chest piece. 

“Y-yes, sir,” Sokka repeated. 

The captain pointed and Zuko marched out from behind the building, Sokka at his side. The captain watched them, glaring at every step they took. They couldn’t enter the central tower, not with the captain watching. 

It was annoying. Zuko stopped in place. 

“Captain, did you hear that?” Zuko said, turning around. 

The man narrowed his eyes. “Hear what?”

Zuko stalked toward him. “Behind the tower, there’s a man.”

The captain turned and looked into the crevasse between buildings that Zuko and Sokka had hidden behind. 

Zuko picked up the larger man by the spikes of his chest piece, enhanced his strength with the fiery chi that flowed through his body, and chucked him into the crevasse, where he fell on his back, head cracking into earth. 

“It’s you,” Zuko finished, drawing his dao. 

Blood dripped down the captain’s forehead as he lifted himself up on his elbows. He sucked in a breath, getting out a strangled yell before Zuko beat him with the blunt edge of his sword. 

Zuko winced. He wasn’t fast enough. 

Sokka was behind him, frantically turning his head in all directions. “Okay, talk time over,” Sokka said, an anxious edge to his voice, pointing to the entrance to the central tower. “Move time _now!”_

They moved, and this time, there was no Zhao to stop them. They took the stairs in the careful but fast manner of soldiers on a mission. 

Zuko expected the top floor to be swarming with guards, and it was— only worse. There were also Yuyan. 

Two archers pointed their arrows at their necks as they ascended the last stair. A guard captain stood behind them with a retinue of ten soldiers, scattered down the hallway leading to the red double doors. They weren’t bunched together, and they didn’t look weak. These were the elite, the best the Stronghold had to offer. 

“State your business,” the guard captain ordered, eyes narrowed in suspicion. 

Zuko was halfway through a mental plan that would cause both Yuyan to fire their arrows at him, only injuring himself, allowing Zuko a painful split second before they brought out a knife for Zuko to strike at them— when Sokka spoke. 

“The Avatar’s escaped!” Sokka yelled, gesturing distraughtly down the stairs. “I don’t know how but he’s tearing through the base, making for the exit!”

_“What!”_ the guard captain snarled, outraged. “Check the cell!” he demanded. 

Two guards at the rear of the hallway split off and dashed for the red double doors. 

Zuko thought very fast. There was no chance that the Avatar had actually escaped. As soon as the guards saw they were lying, they’d swarm them in an instant. 

The Yuyan Archers made a mistake, though. They lowered their arrows. For a Yuyan, it would normally be a mistake that they could rectify in less than half a second, but not against Zuko. 

In two quick slashes, their bows were cut in half. 

The red double doors opened, and the Avatar lifted his bald head, chained against the far wall. 

Every guard turned to look at the small boy. The airbender smiled. 

Zuko swung both his dao between the two archers and whipped them outward, slashing both of them away and onto the floor. He darted through the opening, his step light and sure. There was no time to attack anyone, only defend against their attacks. 

Fire streamed at his face and he slashed through it with an X, without stopping, his form emerging from the flames like a spirit from the abyss, charging at the row of firebenders who had taken quick sloppy form in front of the open double doors. 

Instead of attacking them, he leaped, foot landing on the faceplate of the middle-most soldier, and he flipped himself inside the Avatar’s cell. He did not look back for Sokka. He did not stop. 

His swords were out and at the ready as he once again charged at the Avatar. 

Again, the Avatar’s face morphed into a vision of pure horror, except, this time, Zuko brought his swords straight down on the chains holding up the Avatar’s arms. The links cracked, the Avatar’s arms finally being able to lower. Zuko slashed at the chains holding down his legs, and only then did he turn around. 

The guard captain held Sokka at knifepoint. 

“Admiral Zhao warned me about you people,” the guard captain said, his grip on the knife steady and sure. “He said that the Avatar traveled with a couple of Water Tribe nuisances.” He shook Sokka, as if to prove a point. 

Sokka’s eyes were wide, his hands empty. He had dropped the airbender’s glider. 

The Avatar stepped up to Zuko’s side. 

The boy winked at him. 

“Let Sokka go,” the Avatar ordered, his face serious, as if he had never winked at all. Zuko supposed that he was trying to look intimidating. In his present state, with his clothes torn and his face bruised (the bruising looked worse than Zuko had remembered), it did not seem very effective. 

“You don’t get to make the demands, here, Avatar,” the guard captain replied. “If you don’t surrender yourself, your friend is _dead._”

“I surrender,” the Avatar said solemnly, holding up hands cuffed with broken chains. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“You,” the guard captain jerked his head at Zuko, “Swordsman. Drop your weapons.”

Zuko looked at Sokka and met his pleading blue eyes. 

If Zuko dropped his weapons now, nobody was getting out of this tower alive. At least, Zuko hoped they would kill him. The thought of chains wrapping around his wrists again made his palms sweat. 

No, it couldn’t happen again. He won’t let it happen again. There had to be something he could do. 

A memory of the Avatar’s voice rang through his head. 

_“But Zhao said he was going to keep me alive!” _

Zuko shoved the Avatar in front of him and held his sword to his throat. “If you don’t release the man,” he snarled, “I’m going to slit the Avatar’s throat.”

The Avatar stiffened in his grip like a plank of wood. 

Zuko stared down at the guard captain, their poses mirrored, each with a hostage, standing ten feet away. He noticed the surrounding soldiers shift uneasily. He didn’t see the Yuyan archers. That was dangerous. 

“I don’t care if the Water Tribe boy dies,” Zuko continued, “But if the Avatar dies, you’ll have to start your hunt all over again. The admiral is not going to like that.”

The guard captain swallowed. “A trade, then?”

“You think I’m going to trade something as useful as the Avatar for a _peasant?_” Zuko said, adjusting his grip on his sword. “Release him or the Avatar is dead.”

The guard captain’s yellow eyes were very cool. For a second, Zuko could have sworn that his grip on his knife tightened, but then he let it go. He kicked Sokka out in front of him. The Water Tribe boy stumbled once and caught himself, standing in the gap between Zuko and the guards. 

“Make a path down the hallway!” Zuko ordered.

Nobody moved. 

Zuko pressed down harder on the Avatar’s throat. For a sudden, crazed moment, Zuko realized that he didn’t care if the Avatar died. As long as they couldn’t take Zuko prisoner. He wasn’t going to let them take him again. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t. Don’t make him. _Please, Father, don’t make me do this again. _

The guards moved, pressing themselves against the walls. The floor was littered with arrows, scorch marks, and a few knives. But there was also a staff. The airbender’s staff. 

Zuko shoved the Avatar and they started moving forward. Sokka pressed his back against Zuko’s, holding his club in one hand and his boomerang in the other. It was oddly reassuring. As one, they shifted down the enemy-lined hallway. 

The guards were furious. Anger tugged at all of their features, and hate lined their tensed arms. Any wrong move, and they would all snap. 

They stood over the airbender’s staff. 

It was time for them to snap. 

_"Pick it up,” _Zuko hissed in the Avatar’s ear. He loosened his sword. 

The airbender kicked at the ground and a whoosh of air swung the staff in his hand. In his next motion he hooked both Zuko and Sokka around in front of him, following through with a storm of an air current, which swept down the hall, forcing all the guards in the hallway to tumble into the room the Avatar had previously been imprisoned in. 

That still left all the guards in front of them, Sokka and Zuko each defending a strike from a sword on their respective weapons. 

“Aang!” Sokka called, grunting. “A little help!”

“Sorry!” the airbender chirped, and he leaped up using both Sokka and Zuko’s shoulders and kicked down a wall of air, smashing every single remaining guard into the far wall. 

The way became surprisingly clear. 

The Avatar was a very strong bender. 

They ran down the hallway and Zuko pulled them right, away from the main staircase, pulling them toward the window he had perched in last night— a night that felt very long ago, now.

“You’re our escape route, Aang,” Sokka said anxiously. “Depending on you, buddy.”

The Avatar tapped his staff on the ground and the wings extended on his glider. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got this.”

Zuko snarled down at the guards rushing at them with pikes and swords and flames. “Shut up and jump out the window!”

“Eep,” the Avatar said, and he must have made the plunge because Sokka tugged Zuko out onto the window ledge and, without hesitation, they leaped, for a moment falling freely through the sky, Sokka’s arms flailing widely through the air. Zuko wondered if he should have been afraid. 

They landed on top of the Avatar’s red glider. 

“Oof,” Aang grunted. “You guys are heavy.”

Zuko clutched tightly to the wood of the wing of the glider. They had lost some air, but the Avatar was now compensating, keeping them on a steady track through the sky. 

Zuko chanced a glance back at the window, and he finally saw where the Yuyan Archers had gone. They were on the roof of the tower, their bows nocked and aimed. At least, from the archer’s vantage point, they could only hit Sokka and Zuko, who were both armored. It was about as good of a situation as they could get. 

Except Sokka wasn’t wearing a helmet. 

Zuko adjusted his position enough for him to rip off his own helmet with his right hand. Sokka wasn’t paying any attention to him or the deadly archers aiming for his skull behind him, his blue eyes wide and panicked on the ground. It was like he wasn’t used to flying freely through the air, or some other nonsense. 

Zuko shoved the helmet on the Water Tribe boy’s head. 

The volley of arrows hit.

Zuko ducked his bare head as much as he could, but he couldn’t lift his arms or he’d lose his grip on the glider. The arrows sunk into the weak points of their armor, in the joints between the shin and thigh, between shoulder and arm, between forearm and bicep. More arrows than any other caught the back of the helmet thrown haphazardly over Sokka’s head, and Zuko heard the other boy scream. 

A single arrow came for the back of Zuko’s head, and by some spirit’s grace, perhaps because Zuko had moved at just at the right time, it only grazed his cheek, slicing a shallow ribbon into his flesh before impaling the thin paper of the airbender’s glider. 

They dropped dramatically. 

“Oh no,” the Avatar said. A moment later, he said it again, like a mantra. 

“Fix it!” Zuko screamed. 

“I’m trying!” the airbender yelled back. 

They were losing altitude at a terrible rate. Zuko wasn’t sure if they would be able to breach the wall. The Yuyan perched along the outer walls came into view, and it looked like the glider was heading straight towards them. 

It didn’t look like the Avatar was doing anything about it. 

_“What are you doing!”_ Zuko shouted. 

They were nearly level with the archers, now, and about to smash straight into the sixty-foot stone wall. 

“I’ve got this!” the Avatar called back, and he sucked in a breath. The archers fired. 

When the Avatar breathed out, it was a powerful jetstream. It caught and deflected the arrows back at the Yuyan. It shot their glider up ten feet, just enough for them to scrape clear over the wall, and they sailed out of the Stronghold, out into the open air. 

The Avatar whooped, letting out a hearty, “Yeah!”

Zuko momentarily closed his eyes in relief, feeling the trickle of blood trail down his cheek. 

He expected Sokka to say something, but he heard nothing from the other boy. He glanced over at Sokka, at his dented helmet, at the arrows spiked into stolen Fire Nation armor. The other boy’s head lolled, his firm grip loosening on the wood of the glider. 

“_Land this thing right now!_” Zuko shouted. 

“What?” the Avatar blurted back. “What’s wrong?”

“Your friend is injured!” Zuko snarled, risking dropping one hand from the glider to reach over and grab the back of Sokka’s armor. “He’s about to fall to his death!”

Sokka entirely lost his grip, then, and it was all Zuko could do not to let them both careen overboard into the forest below. The glider twisted in the air, entirely overbalanced, spiraling in a haphazard loop. 

They tumbled down into the trees. Zuko lost his grip on the glider and Sokka at the same time, and he felt branches whip into his face and catch and rip at his hair. He finally landed in the dirt with no air in his lungs. 

He took deep, gasping breaths. He coughed into the ground and achingly turned onto his back. He stared up at the tree canopy. He didn’t want to move. Zuko wanted to lay on that patch of dirt for the rest of his life. 

He forced himself up into a sitting position. He checked himself over. He flexed his arms and legs. He didn’t think anything was broken, though he had definitely gotten more cuts on his face than from just the arrow wound. He was sure he would notice more injuries tomorrow. 

Hobbling to his feet, he searched the undergrowth for the Avatar and Sokka. He found them both together, the airbender trying to pull the Water Tribe boy out of a bush by his armored boot. 

Zuko quickly rushed over and placed his arms under Sokka’s shoulders and heaved the man out of the shrubbery, lugging him onto some plain rock bed and laying him as gently as he could on the ground. 

The airbender nervously darted his gaze from Zuko to Sokka, but mostly stayed on Sokka. He was biting his thumbnail. “What’s wrong with him?” the Avatar asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Chains still swung from the Avatar’s wrists. 

Zuko wearily knelt by Sokka’s side, his armor clanking against the soft sounds of the forest. He carefully took off what used to be Zuko’s helmet, tossing it carelessly over his shoulder. Sokka’s face was pallid, his eyes closed. Blood soaked the back of his head. 

“Head injury,” Zuko said redundantly, since the Avatar saw it for himself. “He’s alive, but unconscious.”

The Avatar had never looked so worried. “Will he be okay?”

“I don’t know!” Zuko barked, jerking back on his heels. “Do I look like a _frosted_ healer to you?”

The Avatar finally looked at him, then, getting a clear, unobstructed view of Zuko for the first time that day. 

“Are _you_ okay?” the Avatar asked, his eyes wide. 

“I’m fine,” Zuko growled, forcing himself to his feet, swaying for a moment. 

They stared at each other, standing on opposite sides of the unconscious and gravely injured Water Tribe boy. A gentle wind blew through the trees, blowing through Zuko’s matted hair. 

It seemed like the whole world was holding its breath. Then it finally let go. 

“There’s so much I want to say to you,” the airbender began. “But I guess I’ll start with— Why?”

“Why what?” Zuko evaded, knowing exactly what the Avatar was asking. 

“Why did you attack me?” the boy asked, his grey eyes earnest and imploring. 

Zuko couldn’t look at him. He looked around the clearing, his eyes going up to catch a flicker of the blue sky, his mouth curling into a joyless smirk. He laughed, a bitter, choking sound. “You might as well ask why the sun rises in the morning.”

“I don’t get it,” the Avatar frowned.

Zuko was tired. It didn’t really matter what he said. “We need to go. I bet you’re wondering where the waterbender is.”

The Avatar blinked, his face startled. “Where is she?”

“Let’s go. I’ll carry him.” Zuko bent down and slung the Water Tribe boy onto his shoulder with a heavy grunt. He started walking towards the ruins of the old town. 

The Avatar was quick to keep up with him. While Zuko’s walk was steady and slow, the airbender’s walk was stilted and fast. He darted ahead and waited for Zuko to catch up, only for him to dart ahead again. 

“Can you please answer my question?” the Avatar asked him, walking backwards to keep Zuko in view. “Pretty please.”

Zuko huffed darkly, “I bet you’re used to getting whatever you want.”

“Because I’m the Avatar?” the boy asked, a little sadly. 

“Why else?”

“It’s not like that,” he said, kicking his shoe through the dirt. “It’s more of the opposite.”

Zuko had nothing to say to that. He didn’t care. 

They trudged in silence. He tried to calm his aching head with the rustling of the trees, the song of the birds. It was almost over, Zuko told himself. 

Maybe because the boy didn’t like silence, his annoying chattering voice broke through the air, sending a hot stab of pain behind Zuko’s eyes. “Why did you want me to hide your name?” the Avatar asked. “I didn’t tell anyone. They tried to beat me, but I didn’t say anything.”

That explained the bruises. He felt a pang of guilt, for some reason. “I shouldn’t have told you that name,” Zuko said. “My name’s Lee.”

“Yeah, _su-re_,” the boy drew out, putting his hands behind his head. “But it’s clearly not.”

“You don’t know anything,” Zuko hissed out. “Zuko is dead. Don’t talk about him.”

“You’re dead?” the boy asked, his eyes wide. “Are you a ghost? Is that why you have horns?”

Zuko stumbled in place, catching himself before he landed on top of the injured man he carried. “I _don’t _have horns.”

“Okay,” the airbender said doubtfully, looking at the horns on Zuko’s head. “Whatever you say, Zuko.”

“Stop talking to me,” Zuko grumbled. 

“So, you’re clearly not dead,” the boy trudged on, heedless of Zuko’s mutinous glare. “You attacked and tried to kidnap me a couple days ago, and then you show up and break me out of prison. Are you insane? That’s what Sokka and Katara like to say.”

Zuko rolled his eyes. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

The Avatar scratched his head. “I just want to figure you out. ‘Cause here’s the thing, Zuko, and I don’t think Sokka and Katara agreed with me before. They might now. I don’t know. But here’s the thing. I don’t think you’re a bad guy.”

Zuko said nothing. He kept his eyes on the ground in front of him. 

The Avatar blundered on. “Weren’t you the one wearing that Fire Nation helmet before? You must have put it on Sokka to save him from those arrows.”

“A dead man would have destabilized the glider,” Zuko said coldly. “We all would have died.”

The Avatar sighed. “Okay— but if Sokka was there, that must mean you got Sokka and Katara the medicine they needed!”

“Because I could use them to break you out of the Stronghold, Avatar.” Zuko adjusted his grip on Sokka. “Stop looking for things that aren’t there.”

The Avatar let out a frustrated breath. “Just tell me why you hate me!”

“I don’t hate you,” Zuko said, almost boredly, like he was commenting on the weather. “I don’t feel anything for you. You’re useful to me. That’s it. You’re the only thing that the Fire Nation wants bad enough to give me exactly what I want.”

“And what _do_ you want?” the airbender said, almost daring him to respond. “Your _name_ back? That’s what you said before.”

Zuko winced. “Something was taken from me, years ago. I’m going to get it back.”

“And if I’m the only person that can do it— Zuko,” the Avatar said, giving him a tremulous smile. “Let me help you.”

Zuko’s hair curled in front of his face. The weight of the man thrown over his shoulder seemed almost unbearable, in that moment. “You can’t.”

“Why?” he pouted. “Is it because you’re Fire Nation?” The Avatar slowed down until he was walking on Zuko’s good side, his right side. “A hundred years ago, my best friend was from the Fire Nation. His name was Kuzon, and we did everything together.” Zuko saw the Avatar smile wistfully from the corner of his eye. “We got into so much trouble.”

Zuko furrowed his brow. Something wasn’t right about that. He debated not saying anything at all. It could be some kind of trick to throw Zuko off guard. But his curiosity forced his hand. He flicked his eyes at the Avatar. “How old are you?”

“I’m twelve. Or one hundred and twelve.” The Avatar smiled, confiding in him, hand covering his mouth so no one other than Zuko could read his lips, “I got trapped in an iceberg.”

Zuko started to wonder if they were still speaking the same language. “Uh, okay. That’s, uh, cool.”

“It wasn’t,” the Avatar said simply. 

Zuko pressed his lips together. He tried to think of something to say, and eventually he settled on, “That’s rough, Avatar.”

“Anyways,” the airbender said brightly. “What I’m trying to say is that we don’t _have _to be enemies! I don’t know,” the boy looked down and kicked his foot into the dirt. He looked back up at Zuko, his eyes wide and trusting. “Maybe we can even be friends?”

Zuko raised an eyebrow. He felt like the Avatar had just told him to swallow shards of glass. “I don’t have friends.”

The Avatar blinked at him. “You don’t?”

“No,” Zuko ground out with finality. He was done discussing it. 

The Avatar cleared his throat, batting his eyelids. “Well, well, well. You know, there’s a perfectly good—”

Zuko slapped him in the back of his bald head without even looking at him. The Avatar yelped, flying five feet forward, clutching his head. Zuko’s breath hitched as a pulled muscle stretched in his back but he continued trudging on, barely acknowledging the wincing airbender. 

“Because I’m such a good person,” the Avatar said dramatically, teary-eyed, settling back into pace at Zuko’s side, “I forgive you for being a mean fire swordsman.”

“How gracious of you, Avatar,” Zuko said blandly, staring dead ahead at the tree line. “Maybe I won’t drop your friend into a river and watch him drown.”

Zuko saw the Avatar nervously glance at Sokka. “You won’t.”

“You really want to test the big bad fire swordsman, Avatar?” Zuko wondered if his face was making one his mean smiles. Probably. 

The Avatar poked his finger at Zuko’s mouth. Zuko stopped in place, flinching his head back, tightening his arm on Sokka. 

“Your teeth are pointy,” the Avatar said, waggling his finger too close to Zuko’s face. 

Zuko bit it. 

The Avatar yelled. Zuko tasted blood, and the Avatar quickly removed his hand from Zuko’s face, clutching it close to his chest. The Avatar had the audacity to give him a betrayed look. 

Zuko spat on the ground and used his free hand to wipe his mouth. “What?” he snarled.

“Are you a spirit?” the boy pouted, shaking out his hand. “You look weird.”

“And your ears look like parachutes, bald boy,” Zuko snapped back. 

The Avatar clapped both of his hands over his ears. “Are they really that bad?” he whined. 

“Someone dropped you on your head as a child,” Zuko responded. 

The Avatar crossed his arms and looked away from Zuko. Good, Zuko thought. It was finally quiet. Enough of his meaningless chatter. 

Without anything to distract him, the unconscious weight of Sokka made every step a trudge. He realized he had started panting. He wondered if he was weaker than he had thought, and crushed the idea before it cascaded into something darker. He stayed on task. He stayed focused. 

“You didn’t have to carry Sokka, you know,” the airbender muttered, like he couldn’t resist saying it. “If we’re not your friends, you should have left him behind.”

Zuko stopped in place, the Avatar stopping a few feet ahead of him. Zuko tilted his head so his face was in shadow. “Do you think this is a game?” Zuko asked. 

“What?” the boy blinked at him. “No.”

“Sokka might be dying right now, Avatar. I know those types of head wounds. Not a lot of people come back from them.”

The Avatar’s fists clenched. “But you said you didn’t know!”

“And you trusted me?” Zuko snapped. 

“Why do you keep saying that!” the boy yelled back at him. “Yes, I trust people!”

Zuko scoffed at the ground. He started walking again, pushing past the resolute airbender, clutching his staff. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” he hissed as he passed him by. 

Tensely, the Avatar followed him. “And you’re going to die alone, Zuko.”

It hurt, oddly. It hurt something very deep and buried in Zuko’s psyche, like the Avatar had thrown him into a dirty cage and tossed away the key. Whatever, he told himself. It didn’t matter. His plan would work. 

Neither of them spoke as they continued walking back to their camp. 

* * *

—

* * *

When the camp came into view, Zuko and the Avatar cresting the hill where the bison still laid, the waterbender rushed out from underneath the overhang. Her cheek was bruised, her hair in disarray, her clothing covered in mud and dirt, and she ran straight for Zuko. 

“What did you do to him!?” she screamed, trying to pull Sokka out of Zuko’s arms. 

“Let me put him down,” he ground out, “You’re gonna snap his frosted neck.”

She dragged him under the overhang and made him lay her brother out on one of their bed rolls. She bent by Sokka's side, gently turning his head to survey the damage. Her hand was shaking. 

“What— What happened to him?” she asked, her voice, for the first time since speaking to him, was fragile. 

Zuko didn’t answer. He didn’t answer, because he looked around the area, and there was no one else. The lemur chirped at him from the top of the shattered pillar. 

He shoved Katara away from her brother and yelled, “What did you do to Uncle!?”

Her face looked up at him, startled and open, before shutting down. Her brows lowering over eyes like chipped glass, her voice like a cold slap of rain. “Nothing.” She shoved him back. “When we exited the sewers, there were Fire Nation guards waiting to ambush us. Your uncle held them off while I—” her face faltered, eyes dropping to the ground. “While I escaped.”

Time felt frozen as Zuko stood in the dusty shade of the old ruined village. Sound seemed to fade into a high-pitched ringing, his vision narrowing down to the waterbender’s anguished face. No, he told himself. No, after all this time, after all this running, they couldn’t have finally gotten his uncle. No, it wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to allow it to happen. 

He was a fool. 

“What’s wrong?” It was the Avatar’s voice. “Katara?” 

“I’m sorry,” Katara said, her voice coming out in a breathless rush. “I’m sorry, I tried to help, but there were too many of them.” Her hand reached out, as if to touch his shoulder. 

Zuko stepped back. He took one step, and then another. His voice came out broken, like nails were stuck in his throat. “Your brother is dying, waterbender.”

Her eyes were like twin shining pools of pain. 

“You better do something about that,” Zuko finished. 

The Avatar rushed forward, reaching for Katara, and as his back presented itself to Zuko, it was his chance. Zuko didn't think. He had forgotten his plan, he had forgotten everything. 

Zuko lashed out with the side of his hand to the base of the Avatar’s neck. He knew, without looking, that the Avatar’s eyes rolled up to the back of his head, and his body collapsed on the ground like a doll with cut strings. 

Katara shouted, already whipping her arms in a fluid motion, but there was only a small amount of water in her pouch. Zuko dragged the Avatar by the back of his cape. 

The waterbender tensed, like she was about to chase him down, and Zuko shouted, “Follow me and your brother will be dead before you ever return!”

Katara froze in place, water curled around her hand. 

Zuko grabbed his pack from the ground. He would have to leave Iroh’s behind. He hefted it onto his back, and then he swung the Avatar into his arms, one hand on his back and the other under his knees. 

“I hate you,” Katara whispered, tears in her eyes. 

“Get in line,” Zuko hissed, his heart breaking like a cave collapsing in on itself. He felt suffocated. They had his uncle. _They had his uncle. _

Zuko kidnapped the Avatar and ran. 

* * *

—


	6. Wanted: Wu, Fortuneteller - Part I

Bruises littered Zuko’s back, and every dogged step forward pulled at his muscles, reminding him of his fall through a tree canopy. The cut on his cheek had stopped bleeding. There were bags under his eyes. A line of strain pinched his brow.

He kept his face as blank and determined as he could make it. He didn’t complain. He kept his pace steady and unbothered. He couldn’t afford to show a single weakness (because weakness was death), especially not to the Avatar. 

The Avatar. The Avatar that he had grabbed in a fit of panic. The Avatar that he was stuck with, now, until he managed to come up with an impossible plan that would allow Zuko to exchange him for his name. Zuko couldn’t afford to let him go. Not now. 

Zuko had fused the Avatar’s trailing chains together. Ironic, how Zuko had been the one to set him free, only to imprison him once again. Zuko was just like his father. He felt sick. He imagined the Avatar’s chains around his own wrists and covered his eyes with his hands, pressing until he saw spots. 

Zuko had removed his own stolen Fire Nation armor, dumping it into the forest, and, together with his unconscious prisoner, he had waited in the woods surrounding the Stronghold, praying to any spirit that would listen that his uncle had managed to get away on his own. 

He didn’t know if Uncle was even alive— No. No, Zuko had to believe that Uncle was still alive. He was not sure what he would do if he didn’t. 

Nobody had shown up. In desperation, Zuko had tried to find his uncle’s faint scent, but either his nose was weak, or his uncle was not even remotely close to him. 

There were many Fire Nation soldiers in the forest, searching fruitlessly with palms full of flame. Shouting for the Avatar. Shouting for the Water Tribe siblings. Shouting for the Blue Spirit. 

Zuko knew his uncle would have made him move on, and he did so reluctantly, painfully. He didn’t know what to do. He needed help. He needed his Uncle. He wanted to scream but his jaw was ground shut. His fist slammed into the flesh of a tree and he should have been worried about the flecks of bark stuck in his knuckles but he wasn’t. 

There was one person he could turn to. She was a person who could find anybody, anywhere. And as much as Zuko hated it, he knew he could trust her. 

Better yet— he knew where she would be. 

* * *

—

* * *

It took them a day to reach the Fire Nation colony town of Tai. 

The dull sun beat down on the Avatar’s black cloaked form. The hood offered a weak disguise, concealing the Avatar’s bald head, at least from a distance, and Zuko wished he could disguise him better, to conceal him from Zhao. But when he imagined the resulting conversation of asking the Avatar to change clothes, it seemed so awkward that Zuko decided he would literally jump off a cliff than risk bringing it up. 

The Avatar did not look much better than Zuko did, his monk robes still torn and punctured, his face still littered with bruises. But the Avatar never complained about it. Had he not been so slippery, Zuko might have called him a model prisoner. Zuko would know, after all. He had been one. 

Zuko wore a similar cloak, seeing as he was stuck with Sokka’s spare set of bright blue clothes, and had picked up a straw farmer’s hat to cover his head and his spirit-damned horns. 

His horns. After the disaster of losing his Uncle, Zuko had sincerely wished that his dragon-esque appearance would have gone away, but, then again, Zuko should have known better than to hope for something. His horns hadn’t gone away. His nails seemed just as sharp as ever. He didn’t dare look at himself in the reflection of a stream. He didn’t want to know what his eyes looked like. 

He kept a firm grasp on the Avatar’s bony shoulder as they dodged a drunkard emerging from the Green Fang, the rowdiest, dirtiest, and loudest inn in the Fire Nation colony town of Tai. It stood a clear three stories high, painted a dull brown-green, chipping in long streaks. Every window was lit, chimes tingling in the air, loud laughter bellowing through the open door. 

The drunkard collapsed against the inn’s wall in front of them, belching. It was only mid-afternoon. 

“This place looks fun,” the Avatar said. 

“Don’t make me gag you again,” Zuko warned, tightening his grip to something painful. “Remember the plan.”

“Yes, older brother, sir, yes,” the Avatar chirped, like he wasn’t currently held in chains. That was the odd thing about the Avatar, Zuko had realized. Either he hadn’t fully grasped the situation, or he _had_, and just wasn’t worried about it. He acted flippant, care-free, unconcerned. Of course, he’d tried to escape at every opportunity, had begged to return to his friends, but when that failed— Zuko was very good at his job— he’d smiled, said something stupid about taking a small detour, and placidly followed as Zuko dragged him along. It was weird. Clearly, the Avatar was up to something. 

“What’s my name?” Zuko asked. 

“Eh, was it Lang?”

“You’re hopeless. I’m going to chain you to a tree.”

The Avatar yelped, “No, not the tree!”

Zuko slapped him on the head and didn’t bother to be gentle about it. “Just don’t talk to anyone.”

The Avatar sent him the most non-reassuring mischievous smile of his repertoire. “I’ll talk to no one,” the Avatar told him, waggling his eyebrows. “No one at all.”

“Idiot,” Zuko sighed. “We’re in the Fire Nation, you know that, right?”

“You don’t think I know the Fire Nation?” the boy scoffed. “That’s not very flameo of you, hotman.”

Zuko had been under the impression that, ever since his uncle had been taken, his life was slowly draining away like sand in an hourglass. For some reason, the Avatar’s words cinched the feeling. 

A man suddenly flew through the inn doors like he had been thrown from a kick. Zuko and the Avatar calmly stepped out of the way. The man landed with a grunt on the dirt road, his robe open to his hairy beer belly. 

“That bitch,” the man rumbled, holding his head. 

From inside the inn, Zuko heard the raucous laughter of a familiar demon. 

“She’s here,” Zuko said, in the much the same tone of voice one would use when talking about a tiger shark circling their raft. 

“Who’s here?” the Avatar asked. 

Maybe because he was feeling charitable, Zuko answered him, “My mentor.”

The Avatar blanched. He stuttered, “You— you mean the person who taught _you_—”

“She taught me about bounty hunting,” Zuko said, cutting him off. “And she’s a menace to society. She deserves to be put away somewhere.”

“Coming from you,” the Avatar told him, “She must be either a really nice person or even crazier than you are. And one of those options is really scaring me.”

“There’s lots of people scarier than me,” Zuko said darkly, grabbing the Avatar’s shoulder and pushing him through the inn door and into a heavily crowded, opium smoked room. A crowd had formed, and some type of activity was going on in the center, and that’s right where Zuko needed to be, because that’s right where _she’d _be. There was one way to deal with a kind of place like this. 

Zuko slugged the nearest man in the face. He flung another one to the side, kicking a large man in the back, and just like that, a full-on brawl had broken out. Only nobody really stood up to Zuko, who kicked and punched with the best of them, and soon Zuko broke out into the central ring with a meekly trailing Avatar, and there she was, arm wrestling an extremely buff man with a headband. 

“What’re you doing with this trash?” Zuko said, and kicked the buff man with the headband so hard that he flew into the wall. He quickly sat down in the man’s place, holding up his own arm. “_June._”

The woman looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties, and she had long dark hair, half pulled into a topknot, part of it covering one eye. Her lips were covered with rouge, and her smile was positively savage as she burped the taste of booze into Zuko’s face. 

“Would you look who it is!” June yelled, grasping Zuko’s proffered hand and immediately trying to crush it to the table. Zuko wasn’t so weak anymore, and he held steady. “It’s my little brat boy!”

“Not fourteen anymore,” Zuko ground out. “But you’re still just as much of a coin-trolling hag.”

“Did you miss me?” she mocked, batting her eyes, tightening her grip on his hand into a near fist. “Baby get lost out there in the big harsh world?”

“Shut up, gold digger. Heard you lost fifty silver to a cut-throat in Gao Ling.”

Zuko started to push their clasped hands just a little closer to the table. He had the upper hand. 

It wasn’t for long. “Fifty silver is nothing to me, brat. I’m in the big leagues.” Their fists went back to being even on the table. “But _I _heard a little something about you in a little town called Cao.” 

“Oh yeah?” Zuko taunted. “What’s that?”

“Some interesting stuff,” she smirked. “Who says I’d tell you for free?”

“Who says you have a choice?”

“Is my baby boy going to make me?” June sneered. “Does my horrible little apprentice think he actually grew some balls?”

A man’s voice jeered out of the crowd, deep and husky. “That your boyfriend, Juney?”

“I’ll gut you with a skewer, Guanxin!” June yelled back. “This _boy_,” she sneered, “has barely stopped wetting his pants!”

A loud, raucous laughter burst through the crowd. 

“As if I’d ever date you, you shriveled hag,” Zuko snapped. “Don’t you eat babies for breakfast?”

On that note, June finally won the arm-wrestling match. She held up her arms, reveling in the crowd’s cheering, and Zuko just rolled his eyes. June accepted a tankard from one of the men of the crowd and took a big swig, and then much of the crowd lost interest, as June declined the offer to arm wrestle anyone else. 

“So,” she began, swirling her glass. “What brings you to my neck of the woods? And where’s your old man? And why are you bringing your bounties into bars?”

Zuko leaned his elbow on the table and rested his head on his fist. “Who says I have a bounty?”

“Says the brat currently chatting up the server girl,” June said, jerking her head. 

Zuko sat up straight in a flash. The Avatar was on the other side of the bar, talking to a bunned woman holding a tray. “That lying piece of—” Zuko began, clenching his fist tighter than he probably should have, considering his on-going claw problem. 

“You’re up to something, Lee,” June said, her one eye shrewdly looking him up and down. 

“Be right back,” Zuko grunted, shoving himself to his feet. 

He came back with the Avatar tucked in a headlock under his arm. 

“Hi there,” the Avatar said cheerily to June from under Zuko’s armpit.

“How much is he worth?” June asked, tapping her glass. 

Zuko shoved the Avatar into the seat next to him before taking a seat himself. “He’s priceless,” Zuko snorted. “Lay off, you greedy leech.”

“I’m really priceless to you, Lang?” the airbender sniffed at him, like he was inexplicably touched by the sentiment. 

“It’s Lee,” Zuko said, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Ah-huh,” June hummed, darting her eyes between them. “You obviously came to find me, brat. Tell me what it’s all about or I bail.”

“Trust me. You don’t want to know what it’s all about.” 

June took another swig of her drink. “Try me.”

Zuko huffed. “Go grab your stinking beast and let’s get out of here.”

She hummed, leaning back on the bench. “Why do I have the feeling that this won’t be profitable?”

He ground his teeth. “It might not be,” he grudgingly admitted. 

She studied him again. “Well,” she ruminated, standing up in one smooth motion, barely inhibited by the alcohol, “Place was getting boring anyway.” 

“I don’t know how you stand this dirthole,” Zuko agreed, standing up as well. 

The Avatar darted up his head. “What, we’re leaving already? But we just got here!”

Zuko grabbed him by the back of the neck. “Little brothers,” he said menacingly, “Listen to their older brothers.”

They marched out of the back of the Green Fang, June casually greeting shady looking individuals and employees alike. The back of the building was dirty, the ground covered in fire stains, and June’s great hairy beast— her shirshu, Nyla. It wasn’t tied up like any other mount, but simply stood there, in the tree-line, waiting. 

June walked over and rubbed its face, gushing kind, bubbly words. Zuko crossed his arms. 

The Avatar gasped. “Whoa! Cool!” Zuko grabbed him before he could slip out and rush over to the shirshu. Together, they walked to June’s side. 

“Your cover is pretty bad,” June told him, patting Nyla’s snout. “Brothers? You two couldn’t look more different. I don’t think the kid even has hair and you’ve got mountains of it.”

“I’m not cutting my hair,” Zuko deadpanned, in the tone of voice of someone who had had this argument many times before. 

She pouted at him. 

“Hey,” the airbender spoke up, “You’re, uh, Lang’s teacher, right?”

June gave him a mildly disdainful look. “I guess if you count telling an idiot not to be stupid _teaching.”_

The Avatar bounced on his feet. “Right, right. Can you do me a favor and order him to let me go? I really need to go back to my friends.”

_“Lee,_” June sighed, her tone suddenly exasperated beyond all measure, massaging her forehead. “What did I tell you about kidnapping _children_?”

Zuko spluttered, “I’ve never— I don’t kidnap kids!”

June gestured tiredly at the Avatar. 

The Avatar pointed at himself, shaking his head reproachfully at Zuko. 

“I don’t!” Zuko yelled. He jabbed his finger into the Avatar’s chest. “You’re a hundred and twelve, you air-headed brat!”

The Avatar stuck his tongue out at him. 

Zuko was about to try to rip the Avatar’s tongue out when June dragged him back a step. She let him go, shoving at his chest. “Where’s the old man? You never answered me.”

He looked back at her, meeting her gaze. Her eyes widened in sudden realization. “That’s what you want me for, huh?” June sighed again. “Never just a visit, always work with you.” She punched his shoulder. It hurt a lot, but Zuko tried not to show it. “Haven’t seen you in months and you show up with a kid you’re dragging around in chains and no old man. You’re a lousy excuse for a bounty hunter.”

Zuko helplessly looked at her. He didn’t know what to say. 

“Don’t just look at me,” she snapped. “Sit down and start explaining yourself, brat!”

He grudgingly ducked his head and sat on the ground. After a moment, June did as well, and Zuko snagged the Avatar’s ankle as he tried to jump into the bushes, which made the boy faceplant into the earth. The Avatar sat up and rubbed at his nose. 

“I did some stupid stuff,” Zuko reluctantly admitted to June. 

June rolled her eyes. 

Zuko ignored her and plowed on. “Down by Pohuai Stronghold. Broke inside. Uncle helped.” He rubbed his forehead. “Uncle got captured.”

Her eyes were too sharp as she considered him. “The old man did, huh?”

Zuko narrowed his eyes. Did she know? Did she know who Uncle really was? “Fire Nation’s not gonna let intruders walk free, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Of course,” June said readily. “Just hard to think your old man would pose much of a threat.”

Zuko shrugged. “He knows some things.”

“I’ll bet he does.”

“Am I missing something here?” the Avatar blurted. 

“I’m going to hang you upside down,” Zuko growled. 

“Can you make him stop being mean to me?” the Avatar whined to June, completely ignoring him. 

June laughed. “_This_ brat? Stop being mean? He doesn’t have a nice bone in his body.”

The Avatar frowned. “I’m not so sure about that.”

June considered him, her one visible eye glittering. “He’s got you in chains, kid. You think that’s something nice people do to kids?”

The Avatar shifted on the ground. “I think Z— uh, Lang’s just lonely.”

Zuko covered his face with his hands. He sighed deeply. 

“You’re a weird kid, you know that?” June said.

“I know,” the Avatar smiled, a bit sadly. 

She shifted back to Zuko. “If you don’t start explaining what your deal is here,” she gestured to the Avatar, “I’m out.”

Zuko crossed his arms. He took a deep breath. “This,” he scoffed, flinging his hand at the boy, “is the Avatar.”

The three of them sat in silence as June tried to digest that information. 

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” she asked, eventually, darting her eyes between the two of them. 

“No,” Zuko said. The Avatar spluttered in affront. “He’s untrained and an idiot, but he can be a powerful bender, if you give him the chance.” 

“I… see,” June hummed. “What’re you using him for?”

Zuko opened his mouth, but found he had nothing to say. Eventually, he settled on, “I’m getting back something I lost.”

June gave him a flat look. “Blah-blah-blah— your mysterious past, is it?” she waved sarcastically. 

Zuko clenched his jaw and shrugged. 

“You know,” June began, her voice hardening, leaning forward on her knees. “I’m not an idiot.”

“I know that,” he ground out. 

“You’re way too bleeding talented to be street scum, brat. That’s the only reason I took you on. You’ve had some serious training.”

The Avatar looked on, intrigued. Zuko tried to block him out. 

“You don’t get serious training unless you’re part of the top,” June continued. “Everybody knows that. And the way you act sometimes— or, at least, back then. It’s obvious you’re a noble.”

Zuko shrugged again, but his body was tense. Any second now, she’d tell him that she knew about Uncle. 

“You’re a _banished _noble, Lee,” she finished smugly. “And I know for sure that Lee isn’t your real name. Not that I care.”

It was a reasonable guess, but still very far from the truth. Zuko slightly relaxed his shoulders. She hadn’t said anything about Uncle, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t drawn the right conclusions in that department. June had to have come across the Dragon of the West’s wanted poster at least once. 

“You think this kid’s gonna lift your banishment,” June declared, and it wasn’t a question. She nodded her head at the Avatar. 

It was better to let her believe in her own lie than for Zuko to convince June of another one, since he wasn’t terribly good at it. Besides, it had an element of truth to it. Zuko bowed his head in a careful nod. 

She clucked her tongue, like she knew that she would be right. “Which family you from? Nagata? Zayasu?”

Nagata and Zayasu were two minor houses of the eastern Fire Nation, known for having big families. Zuko assumed that she picked them because of how close they were to the Earth Kingdom, and also because one banished son from either of those houses wouldn’t make much of a splash in the rumor mill. Smart choices.

Zuko grunted noncommittally. “You done?”

“Should’ve known better than to expect answers out of you, brat,” she huffed. 

“It never bothered you before,” he shot back. 

June leaned back on her heels. “You were just a homeless brat, before. And now—” she shook her head, “you’re messing with all that spirits and legends nonsense. You’re in over your head.”

“I didn’t come here for you to lecture me,” Zuko snapped.

“The old man’s obviously not gonna do it!” she yelled back. 

Zuko flinched, turning his head to the side. Uncle was still missing. Captured. Gone. 

June sighed. She rubbed at her eyes. Zuko noticed that her shirshu had settled down on all fours. “Okay,” she let out, like a sigh. Then she looked up at him with a vicious smile. “Every bounty you get for the next year is _mine._”

“What!?” Zuko spluttered, jerking back to look at her. “No frosted way!”

“I’ll make sure to leave you a couple piddling pieces of copper,” she sneered. 

Zuko ground his teeth. “You’ll get ten percent.”

“For this dung-carcass?” she said, waving at the Avatar and Zuko. “You owe me way more. Ninety.”

“Thirty,” Zuko shot back. 

“Seventy.”

“You gold-digging hag,” he hissed. 

She batted her eyelashes at him. “Do you want my help or not?”

“I’d sooner see you in a grave,” he grumbled. “_Half.”_

She smiled like a tiger-shark. “Great doing business with you, my little brat apprentice.” She reached out a hand to knock off Zuko’s straw farmer’s hat but he tilted back, barely avoiding her grip. There were _horns_ on his head, for Agni’s sake. June frowned, tucking her hand back to her side, and stood up. 

Zuko caught the Avatar looking at him dubiously, as they both sat alone on the ground. “Are all your friends like this?” the Avatar asked snidely. 

Zuko shoved himself to his feet. “I don’t have friends.”

* * *

—

* * *

One of Uncles’ Pai Sho tiles had somehow slipped into Zuko’s bag, and that was the piece that June’s damn shirshu used. It’s odd flat whiskered snout snuffled the piece in June’s hand, and there was a tense moment as the beast wildly whipped his head in all directions. 

Then it settled on one. 

Zuko wedged the Avatar between himself and June, and the three of them set off through the forest, her shirshu faster than any ostrich-horse. The Avatar seemed delighted by it. 

“This is awesome!” he whooped. 

“Shut up,” Zuko sighed, but there wasn’t much actual annoyance behind it, beyond his usual show. It seemed like the more time you spent with the Avatar, the more resigned you became to his personality. The Avatar was beginning to wear on him. 

Riding Nyla was not an unfamiliar experience for Zuko. He and his uncle had frequently traveled with June throughout the past years, and as much as she grated on his every nerve, Zuko respected her in a way that he did not respect most other people. She had her own personal honor to her, a way of conducting business that was very Earth Kingdom, and yet, despite that, she remained unprejudiced in the war. To her, war was business. In all his recent hard years, Zuko had come to understand that, as horrible as it was. He did not think the boy that he used to be, that unscarred Prince, would think the same. 

It soon became apparent, as June urged Nyla to slow to a trot, that there was a blockade on the southern road, the fastest route down to the Stronghold. Zuko made out the hulking form of a tank, and a full row of armored soldiers, a wall of deep red. June pulled Nyla around, and they went back the way they came, hopefully without being noticed. 

“Damn,” June drawled. “You weren’t kidding.”

“Avoid the roads,” Zuko said grimly. 

As they carefully trotted into the woods, moving much slower than before, June called to the Avatar sitting behind her. “Not sure if we’re doing you a favor, kid. Maybe you’re better off with the Fire Nation.”

“Pretty sure anything’s better than the Fire Nation,” the airbender said wryly. “Even crazy swordsmen.” He turned his head and shot Zuko a smirk. 

Zuko smacked the Avatar’s arm. The boy yelped. “Stop encouraging my prisoner to escape,” he huffed to June. 

She cryptically didn’t say anything to that. 

Backtracking led them to the old ruined town that the Avatar and his friends had once made camp in, and Nyla ran up through the ruins, pausing to sniff in the empty ensconced half-building where the Avatar’s bison had once laid. 

There was no one there now. There was only the dead remains of a campfire and a dozen abandoned metal trinkets. 

Zuko felt the Avatar deflate, his head bowed, resting against June’s back. Where before the Avatar had always had a certain strength about him, now there was a fragility. 

“They had to leave,” Zuko said quietly, so that only the Avatar could hear him, and he wasn’t sure why. “This area’s swarming with the Army.”

The Avatar didn’t respond, and Zuko didn’t try to say anything else. 

Nyla set off once again through the forest, leaping over fallen logs, twisting through bushes. Zuko warned June when they were getting too close to the Stronghold, and June pulled her shirshu to the right, forcing him to make a loop. 

“You don’t think they’re keeping him there?” June asked. 

Keep the Dragon of the West in a Stronghold that was just broken into twice? Zuko didn’t think so. “They took him somewhere else,” Zuko said. “Or they will.”

“Or the old man’s dead,” June finished.

Zuko involuntarily tightened his grip on the Avatar in front of him. He closed his eyes. No, he had to believe that Uncle wasn’t dead. Uncle _couldn’t_ be dead. 

Looping around the Stronghold forced them to cross roads, and to do that, they had to get much farther away from the army base, to avoid the checkpoints. It cost them a lot of time, and it was fully night by the time that Nyla actually caught something. 

“It’s faint,” June said quietly. They were hiding among the trees along the eastern road. “But it's outgoing.”

Zuko fought back his own exhaustion. He gritted his teeth. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t know about you, Lee, but you know I don’t work through the night,” June said sternly. “Nyla’s tired, and I know you are too, you dumb brat. Probably haven’t slept more than two hours in the past three days, knowing you.”

“Are we finally stopping?” the Avatar said, and he sounded a lot more like himself, after sitting quietly for a few hours. “I am _so_ bored.”

“Sorry that bounty hunting bores you so much, kid,” June said, without much inflection. “I’d say don’t pick it up. It’s mostly walking around and asking questions. Invigorating stuff.”

They made camp that night, huddled in a divot in the earth, not bothering with a fire. They ate their measly provisions, and for all that June had claimed that she was in the big leagues, now, she was just as used to the bitter cold of sleeping on the ground as Zuko was. But she had Nyla to curl up against. 

Zuko, on the other hand, leaned back against a tree and watched as the Avatar curled his knees to his chest, wrapping his chained arms around his legs. The airbender was wide awake, Zuko knew, despite the fact that he was only a faint outline in the starlight. The Avatar let out a sigh. 

Guilt felt like the taste of blood at the back of Zuko’s throat. He tried to push it aside, but the thought came, again, unbidden, that he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to do with the Avatar. He would have to contact his father, somehow, without anyone knowing, and somehow make his father show up to a meeting with no guards— something his father would never do, not in a thousand years. In the darkness, the thoughts became darker, and a voice told him that he would never be able to get to his father at all, to make the deal, to return his name, no matter how hard he tried. A helpless feeling overcame him as he tried to think of it, as he tried to make a plan, and it felt a lot like being locked in a cage. He could send a letter— He could sneak through the palace— He could find his sister— 

The Avatar slid over to him and Zuko tried to conceal the shaking in his hands. “Hey, Zuko,” the Avatar whispered, and Zuko held himself back from punching the boy for using Zuko’s real name. “I’m sorry.”

Zuko furrowed his brow, bemused. “Why?” he rumbled.

“It’s my fault that your uncle got captured,” the Avatar explained, still just as quiet. “If you hadn’t broken me out, then—”

“Shut up,” Zuko said. “Breaking you out was my decision. I knew the risks.”

Zuko thought he could see the Avatar shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have gotten captured in the first place. I’m the Avatar, I’m supposed to be better,” his voice cracked, turning into something very small, “I should be better than this.”

Zuko had the sudden urge to rub the Avatar’s back, like he used to do when Azula had cried during thunderstorms, pulling her close to his chest and telling her that everything would be all right. _Shh, shh, everything’s all right. It’s just thunder. Nobody’s angry at you. Dad’s not angry. It’s just thunder, see?_

Zuko cleared his throat. “Then get better,” he said, with little fanfare. 

“I’m trying,” the airbender said, his voice strained. “I need to get to the North Pole. Katara and Sokka were taking me there.”

“Are they from the North Pole?”

“I think they’d be offended if they heard you ask that,” the boy said, laughter held like bubbles in his voice. 

“South Pole?” Zuko asked, and it must be the sleep deprivation, because he wasn’t sure why he cared. 

“Yeah,” the Avatar sighed. “They’ve been with me ever since I woke up. They’re— all I have, really. I don’t have anyone else.”

Zuko clenched and unclenched his fists. “Because you were born over a hundred years ago.”

The Avatar glumly made a noise of assent. 

Zuko’s great grandfather had killed everyone the Avatar had ever known. 

“I’m sorry,” Zuko blurted, and it came out of his mouth before he’d even realized what words his mouth was forming. “I mean— whatever.”

“Are you apologizing for kidnapping me?” the Avatar asked incredulously, like Zuko had just told him a great joke and he was trying to hold in his laughter. “You know, there’s an easy solution to that.”

“That wasn’t what I was apologizing for,” Zuko snapped, leaning more firmly back against his tree. “I don’t know why I apologized. I guess—” He sighed. “I guess I’m sorry for your family.”

“Monks don’t really have families, not in the way that you think of them,” the airbender explained, and there was a hint of warmth in his voice that wasn’t there before. “But I think— after knowing Sokka and Katara, I think I know what you mean, now. They were my family.”

Zuko wrapped his hands around his arms. “Losing family is hard.”

“Yeah,” the Avatar murmured. And with no warning, he asked, “Do you think Sokka is all right?”

Zuko swallowed and gripped his own arms tighter. Maybe he should lie. Maybe he should say nothing. “I don’t know,” he said. 

“Wherever you’re trying to take me, Zuko,” the Avatar said softly, “After we find your uncle, can we find them? Can we make sure they’re okay?”

Zuko blinked his eyes closed. They were very heavy. He didn’t remember the last time he had slept. “Okay,” he whispered. With a stronger voice, he barked, “Now go to sleep and leave me alone.”

The Avatar slid away from him. For the next half hour, Zuko forced himself to stay awake, but the Avatar didn’t try to run, and eventually Zuko allowed himself to succumb to a fitful slumber. 

* * *

—

* * *

The healer, a bent old man with strings of grey hair and reflective round glasses, told Katara that her brother was going to live. Her grip was tight around her brother’s bony wrist, as Sokka laid out on the futon in the healer’s den. His head was so covered in bandages that he might as well be wearing a bag on his head. Katara would have found it funny, but Sokka still hadn’t woken up, and it had been a full day. 

It had been a full day since Katara realized that she could heal with waterbending. 

“The injury wasn’t that severe,” the old man ruminated, the tap of his wooden cane as he shuffled around the low-ceilinged room. Katara had hoped that it wouldn’t be, not after she had tried to heal him. But she didn’t know for sure. She never knew for sure. She _never_ knew what she was doing, and she hated it more than she hated herself for letting this happen to her brother. 

“With that injury,” the old man continued— he had called himself Kaku— “Why, I’m sure he should’ve been awake by now. Very strange.”

Katara nervously swallowed, staring at the slack bottom half of Sokka’s face. 

“Perhaps you should consult Aunt Wu,” the healer finished, coming to a stop near the door to the room. “I’m sure she’ll have the answer for you.”

“Aunt Wu?” she asked, tearing her eyes away from Sokka. 

Kaku smiled behind his round reflective glasses. “The fortuneteller.”

The healer left her, then. 

* * *

—

* * *

The first question Katara asked was, “When will my brother wake up?”

And then she asked, “Where did Zuko take Aang?”

And then, finally, she asked, “Why can’t I do anything right? Why does everything crumble around me like a melted snowdrift? Why am I so useless? How could I let his happen to _him_—” her words stumbling over each other, tears turning the fortuneteller into a yellow-cloaked and grey-haired blob. “We’re supposed to protect each other but all I’ve been doing is _nothing. _I shouldn’t’ve— I shouldn’t have let him go without me. We’re supposed to be a team. Tui and La, please— please tell me, please answer me, why am I so _useless_?”

“Oh dear,” the fortune teller said, and she pulled Katara into her arms, gently stroking her back, but Katara felt like a plank of wood, like a dead thing that had broken off a tree, lying on the forest floor, waiting to get stepped on. “Oh my dear, it’s all right.”

Katara shoved the fortune teller away from her, feeling the trickle of her tears sliding down her face. “_Nothing _is all right!” she yelled. “If you’re supposed to know everything, then—” she clenched her fists, “Then tell me what’s wrong with me!”

Aunt Wu had sad eyes, when she looked at Katara. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Katara forced herself to her feet. “You don’t have any answers,” she rasped vindictively, and she really should have known better. Sokka would have told her that fortunetellers weren’t real. Sokka never would have come here. She turned towards the door. “I’m going back to my brother.”

“Wait!” Aunt Wu called, grabbing Katara’s shoulder. Katara grudgingly turned around. “At least let me read your palm, let me tell you what awaits you in your future.”

“I only want you to tell me one thing,” Katara said, a heavy weight in her chest. “Does the war end?”

Aunt Wu looked startled, for a moment, but Katara saw that she quickly hid it away, covering it with a bland expression of benevolence. “Yes, my dear,” Aunt Wu told her. 

“I thought you’d say that,” Katara muttered with eyes that said, ‘_I wish I could believe you_,’ and she walked out of the fortuneteller’s house, feeling cold. 

* * *

—

* * *

“Hey, Sokka,” Katara began, kneeling next to her brother’s unconscious body. She didn’t know why she was trying to talk to him. Maybe because she had no one else, besides Appa and Momo. Momo had taken to curling up against her brother’s side like a small furry rock. “I think fortunetellers are dumb. Everyone in Makapu doesn’t think so, though. I don’t know. Maybe she’s right about certain things, like who you’ll fall in love with.” Katara sighed, and paused to run a hand through her hair. “This entire village is on a volcano, which I think is pretty crazy. Some townsfolk told me it’s very common in the Fire Nation, which I think just cinches it. If there’s one nation crazy enough to live on a volcano, it's theirs.” 

Sokka, expectedly, didn’t respond. He didn’t laugh, or shoot back a quick response or a joke, or even roll his eyes. He just laid there. 

“There’s this ceremony they do here,” Katara continued, because she knew her brother would find it interesting, “where the fortuneteller tells the village if the volcano is going to erupt or not. Every year. She’s never told them it will. Apparently, it’s not going to erupt. Maybe it won’t ever.” She let out a breath, speaking softly. “You probably know more about volcanoes than I do.”

Again, she studied her brother’s blank face. He could have been sleeping, for all she knew. She rapped her knuckles on the wooden floor. “Wake up already, dummy,” she whispered. 

* * *

— 

* * *

Zuko woke up to the cold touch of steel at his throat. He froze in place, cursing himself for falling asleep in the first place, for not waking up at the first sound of the intruder’s light footsteps. 

He opened his eyes, but he did not come face to face with a Fire Nation soldier. Instead, it was a skinny woman with light brown hair, dressed in the threadbare robes of the very poor. The lower half of her face was covered by a black bandanna, and she ordered him, “Your coin, _give it_.”

Zuko summed up in one quick look that she was a brigand. Zuko knew it was a brigand, and not a thief, or a robber, or a marauder, or an outlaw, or a type of ruffian— because it was his business to be able to tell the difference between petty criminals. A brigand worked in a group, and they stuck to the forested roads, and— 

This woman wasn’t alone. 

Zuko swept his eyes over their small divot. He saw that June was pinned in much the same way that he was, snarling up at a man that couldn’t be much older than Zuko himself, wearing the same kind of bandanna around his lower face. Two of the brigands held Nyla at spearpoint and the Avatar— well. It looked like he was still asleep. There was another woman holding him at spearpoint, for security reasons, Zuko thought, and not because they seriously thought he was a threat. 

Zuko looked back at the woman holding him at knifepoint. He moved his tongue around his mouth, trying to remove the bad taste lingering at the back of his throat, and said, “Your group’s pretty quiet.”

Zuko saw her brow furrow even deeper, and he guessed that she was frowning at him, though he couldn’t tell. “Not the kind of thing you’d normally say when someone’s about to kill you.”

“So kill me,” Zuko said, because he really didn’t like these brigands, and he really didn’t like waking up by knifepoint. “Before I kill you.”

And on that cue, June kicked out the foot of her assailant and twisted the brigand’s arm far behind his back, far enough that he let out a scream. 

Zuko slipped back, to the side of the tree he was leaning back against, until the knife was free from his throat, and then he kicked his brigand’s arm to send her knife flying through the air. Weaponless, she was wide open as Zuko kicked her again in her stomach, hard enough that she flew three feet backwards and tumbled to the earth. 

Zuko stood up, cracking his neck, preparing for a fight, but it seemed like there was no need, because, as the woman who Zuko had kicked wheezed on the ground, all the other brigands, three in total, plus the one June was mercilessly pinning, lowered their weapons and took a step back from their clearing. 

Zuko met June’s sardonic eye. She raised an eyebrow over the shoulder of the panicking brigand still held in her grasp. 

The Avatar chose that moment to grace the world with his waking presence. “Mmm, Momo, don’t—” he murmured, and his eyes blearily blinked open. 

“Good of you to join us,” Zuko growled. 

The Avatar’s mouth flopped open like a dead fish as he took in the brigand held in June’s arms, the brigand wheezing on the ground not two feet away from him, and the three clutching nervously at their spears a good distance away from the shirshu. The Avatar said, very succinctly, for the blabbering airbender, “Uh oh.”

“The situation’s under control,” June declared, almost boredly, like she could control the situation if she just claimed it with enough confidence. “If I had a guess, these would be a group of local thieves from the Earth Kingdom, black bandannas.” She huffed, pulling tighter on her brigand’s arm, making him wince. “They’re not worth that much.”

“They’re still worth something,” Zuko offered. 

“Don’t you dare shoot my teachings back at me, brat,” June hissed. 

One of the three uninjured brigands, the woman, dark-haired, short, who had once held a spear at the Avatar, took that moment to shout, “Please stop talking about us like we’re not right here.”

“Don’t—” the woman who Zuko had kicked gasped, still on the ground, “Don’t provoke them!”

“You hear that?” June sneered. “They said not to provoke us, Lee.”

“I heard them, June,” Zuko sneered back. 

The Avatar waved his hands around in a frantic motion, his handcuffs clinking, subconsciously kicking up a tiny breeze. “Why don’t we all calm down and have a nice chat?” he offered. 

Everyone turned to look at the boy, all of them— the brigands, June, and Zuko— like how one would turn to look at a platypus bear with no beak.

“No?” the Avatar squeaked, tapping his fingers together. 

“Listen,” the short brigand, the woman standing with two other men with spears held at the ground, said, “We don’t want to hurt nobody. You obviously can take care of yourselves, and we won’t bother you again. So just let our pal go.”

“Not sure if we should,” June said. “Not until you coughed up what you took.”

“We didn’t take anything!” the brigand yelled. 

“Please,” June scoffed. 

“Maybe they’re telling the truth?” the Avatar suggested, and Zuko was tired of him butting into the situation. As he walked forward, he saw all of brigands visibly tense, but Zuko did nothing other than grab the Avatar by the shoulder and pull the boy behind him. 

“Stay out of this,” Zuko muttered lowly, hoping that only the Avatar would pick it up. Louder, he said, “We’re looking for a Fire Nation convoy, transporting a prisoner. Seen anything like that?”

Zuko took in the way that the brigands shifted on their feet, the way that they glanced between each other. It was going to be one of _those_ games, and Zuko didn’t feel like playing. He was exhausted. Every second he wasted talking to thieves and muggers, his uncle got farther away from him. 

“Tell me or don’t tell me!” Zuko yelled, suddenly fed up, clenching his fists, and he wondered if his hands were smoking, and he hoped they weren’t, “I don’t give a flying hogmonkey! If I ever see one of you pieces of hippo-cow dung again I’ll stab you through your hands, tie you over the edge of a cliff and watch you bleed out!”

There was a startled silence in the clearing. 

Normally, when Zuko threatened people, they either ran away or tried to kill him. Oddly enough, these brigands did neither. It looked like were frozen in place. 

June startled them into motion by releasing her pinned brigand and shoving him to the ground. “Tch,” she scoffed down at him, like she wanted to spit at his feet. The young man crawled away from her, stumbling into the brown-haired woman still lying in the clearing. The woman clutched the young man’s shoulder, and together, they helped each other stand.

June and Zuko didn’t move, standing tensely at the ready, as the brigands hobbled over to the rest of their group, but it seemed like no one was prepared to fight them. Maybe they had chosen to run, after all. 

The brown-haired woman looked back at him, then, hemmed in on all sides with her comrades. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, staring intently at his chest. “Is it— is it too much to ask that you won’t tell anyone?”

Zuko bared his teeth, but it was the Avatar who responded. The Avatar stepped around Zuko and said, warmly, “Don’t worry. We won’t tell.”

Zuko wanted to punch him for his impudence, and he would have, had the woman not responded, “Thank you.” She nodded her head in a weak bow. “We did see that convoy, by the way. Might’ve just been some troops moving around, though. Looked pretty high rank.” She turned her face away from them. “Too many soldiers around these days.”

Zuko swallowed around the bitterness at the back of his throat. “There’s a war going on.”

“A war’s been going on for my entire life,” she muttered, letting out a harsh laugh. “And a war’ll be going on when I die.”

They watched as the group stumbled away from them. Zuko had to hold the Avatar back from taking a step forward in pursuit. There was a strangely anguished expression on the airbender’s face that Zuko had never seen before on the boy. The expression didn’t seem to fit his face, much like he’d donned the mask of an older man. 

Zuko contemplated him, his own brow furrowed, before he said, “They’re a bunch of cutthroats, Avatar. They’ve taken money from children and weeping mothers. They’ve left little girls starving on the street. They’ve beaten husbands to within an inch of their life and made the wife watch.” Zuko lightly batted the Avatar’s forehead. “They’re not good people.”

The Avatar tore his weather-beaten eyes up to meet Zuko’s. “They didn’t hurt us any.”

“Because we’re used to dealing with them,” Zuko huffed. “Normally, we capture them and turn them in. They’re _wanted_ for a reason.”

The Avatar kicked at the ground. It was refreshing, Zuko thought, to realize that the Avatar’s general insanity towards horrible people was not specific to Zuko. 

“I’ll report them when we get into the next town,” June said, striding up to them, brushing off the dust from her robes. “That could have been a lot worse. They couldn’t find any of our coin” —Zuko and June both knew to hide it on their persons— “and they only grabbed some of our food.”

“But I promised that we wouldn’t tell anyone!” the Avatar exclaimed. 

“_I _didn’t,” June drew out, like the Avatar was too slow to understand her. She quickly spun away, hefting and tying her bags onto Nyla’s saddle. 

The Avatar pouted at the ground. 

“Don’t try to make June do something she doesn’t want to do,” Zuko offered, haltingly. He lifted his arm to pat the Avatar on the shoulder but aborted the motion halfway through, awkwardly resting his hand on his dao instead. “It never works.”

The Avatar shot him a sour look, like it was Zuko’s fault, somehow, that he couldn’t aid and befriend thieves. Figures, Zuko thought, scowling at the ground. It was always Zuko’s fault. 

Zuko gathered his own bag, and the light of dawn was newly born as they set off on Nyla down Uncle’s trail. 

* * *

—

* * *

Sokka woke up the morning nearly everyone in the village of Makapu died. Katara had taken to helping the old healer Kaku around his hut, since she spent so much time in it, and the old man had set her to grounding up three types of herbs for a special tea in a pestle. The herbs smelt like grass, and she wrinkled her nose whenever Kaku wasn’t looking. 

Then she heard a croaky voice call out her name, and she upturned the stone bowl all over the floor when she rushed to her feet. 

She found Sokka confusedly tugging off the bag of bandages wrapped around his head and she wanted to cry and yell at him at the same time. 

“Leave that on!” she sob-yelled, “Sokka, you idiot!”

“I’m fine,” her brother said, but his voice was too weak. He licked his lips and Katara was up and had fetched him a glass of water before he could even ask. Her hand was shaking as she handed it off to him, and his hand was shaking as he took it from her. 

He took a careful sip, and Katara felt something hard and painful in her chest ease away. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Katara whispered, resting a gentle hand on Sokka’s shoulder. 

“Ugh, I feel like crap,” he complained, and at Katara’s worried look, he quickly assured, “But good crap. Fantastic crap. Some real high-quality crap. I’m fertilizer.”

She felt like her eyebrows had permanently formed into a furrow. “Please don’t push yourself, Sokka.”

“Katara, really,” he said softly. “I think I’m okay.”

Maybe the healing she had done had helped. Maybe she had been able to do something, after all. The words fell out of her, then. What had happened during her escape from Pohuai Stronghold. What had happened when Zuko had carried Sokka back into their camp, Aang in tow. The way Zuko had snapped and attacked Aang, kidnapping him and leaving Katara alone to keep Sokka alive. The way she had figured out how to heal with waterbending. The way she had found Makapu, the only village in their vicinity that the Fire Nation hadn’t managed to get to. 

“Wait, hold up,” Sokka weakly held out a hand. “You’ve been able to heal with magic water all this time and you didn’t tell me?”

“You’re really the King of Missing the Point, aren’t you?”

“Where were you when I had _two_ fish hooks—”

“Sokka. Aang has been _kidnapped._”

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved his hand. “But what about that time I fell—”

“Kidnapped!”

He sighed. “This isn’t over,” he warned. 

Katara wondered why she had missed this idiot. “La forbid that you ever let anything go.”

“I’m sick and injured— you can’t treat me this way.”

“I can and _will,_” Katara huffed, crossing her arms. 

But instead of complaining some more, Sokka just smiled into the ceiling, a fond half curl of the side of his mouth. “I’m glad you’re here, Katara.”

“I’m glad you’re here, too,” she smiled, her throat catching. 

Sokka pushed himself up to a sitting position, and Katara helped him, even though it didn’t seem like he needed it. He didn’t feel any dizziness or see any black spots, and so, based on what tentative medical knowledge that Katara had gathered, Sokka really seemed okay. 

“You know, I think we can both agree that that Zuko guy is a pretty huge jerk,” Sokka began. “A jerkbender of Zhao-caliber you might say.”

“Tell me about it.”

“But there’s something— Katara,” Sokka said solemnly, meeting her eyes. “I think he saved my life.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, and it felt a lot like the world was tilting. 

“He took off his own helmet and he put it on me.” His voice was soft, wondering. “I didn’t think to turn around— I didn’t see the archers until it was too late. I think— Zuko saw them. He knew that they’d aim at me, ‘cause I was the least armored. He knew, and he— decided to sacrifice himself, instead. I just— ” Katara looked deep into his confused eyes. “I don’t get it.”

Katara’s confusion echoed her brothers’. “I don’t get him at all,” she agreed.

Sokka reached up and adjusted more of his bandages and Katara resisted the urge to knock his hand away. “We can try to codify everything we know about him, but it amounts to so little. He’s a firebender, he’s Fire Nation, but he’s also an Earth Kingdom bounty hunter. Which, I mean— _what?_” Sokka carefully shook his head. “Half the time he’s helping us and the other half he’s trying to destroy any hope this world has left for peace.”

Katara did a helpless shrug. “He’s Fire Nation.”

“He’s more than that,” Sokka insisted. “He’s dangerous.”

“I know,” Katara said, her voice hard and chipped like flint. Her thoughts wanted to follow along a dark path but she forced herself to clear her throat and say, “But Aang’s powerful, too. If Aang doesn’t get away from him first, then we’ll just have to find Zuko and do it ourselves.”

Sokka suddenly let out a sharp bark of a laugh, a bitter, humorless chuckle. “Like we’ll be any good against him.”

Katara drew herself up until her back was ramrod straight. “We can’t give up on Aang, Sokka!”

He winced, resting his hands gently on his lap. “I know,” he said carefully, like he was building a tower out of sticks. “But I’m trying to be realistic, here. Think of it, for a second. For all we know, he’s a master firebender— or at least he knows more bending than _you_ do— and we _know_ he’s a master swordsman, which I mean,” his smile turned self-deprecating, “We know that’s a lot more than _me_.”

Katara felt herself filling with an indignant rage. “You’re trying to say that he’s better than both of us combined, which is _so_—!” she huffed and tried to keep her tone level. “That’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

“I’m not wrong.”

“Maybe you’ve got _some_ of the facts.” She poked her brother in the chest to enunciate the word ‘facts’ because she knew Sokka loved his precious facts. “But you’re missing some, too. We don’t need to fight him.”

Sokka blinked at her. “We don’t need to fight him?”

“If we fight him straight on, we’re going to lose. I agree.”

“You agree?” Sokka repeated, like that was something Katara had never said before. 

“But we’ve never fought anyone straight on, and I don’t see why we should start now.”

Sokka stared at her a bit blankly, and she grew worried that maybe he was still injured, that something had gone wrong, but a wry grin just overtook his face, and he fondly shook his head. “I’m supposed to be the smart one,” he said. 

Katara laughed. “If _you’re_ the smart one, then the world is doomed.”

“Hey!” he protested. “We’re supposed to be _stopping_ the world from doom.”

“We? I’m pretty sure that’s Aang.”

“And I think saving Aang from crazy sword-wielding jerkbenders _counts. _By association.”

Katara sat back on her heels, a warm smile on her face, taking in her brother’s stubbornly jutted out lip, his indignant chin, and basked in the feeling of not being alone anymore. The fate of the entire world wasn’t hers alone to bear. She had a brother who could take half of it, at least while Aang was still missing. And then, when they got Aang back, they could split it evenly three ways, like it was before, each of them nearly bowed with the weight, but none of them drowning in it. That’s what she wanted. She didn’t want any of them to drown. 

Not like she had nearly drowned. 

Her smile slipped away, and she found it was a lot harder to keep it on her face than it used to be. “Sokka,” she began, but she never got to finish her sentence. 

The ground shook, the earth turning against her like a loose ice floe, and before the terror truly began, Katara heard Appa let out a deep, solemn bellow from outside the hut, like a mourning cry. 

* * *

—


	7. Wanted: Wu, Fortuneteller - Part II

As far as brigs went, Iroh thought that Admiral Zhao’s brig was exemplary. Very clean. There was only one man bleeding out in chains, and they’d given him the courtesy of still wearing his clothes. Very honorable. 

Zhao always visited alone. Iroh thought that was an interesting choice for a man of Zhao’s caliber. Zhao made sure that he was always standing, so that he could look down at Iroh like a man would look down at the map of a conquered city. Pointing out areas of egress. _We’ll build a blockade here. We’ll restructure this gate. We’ll decimate this borough. _

“I hope you are finding the accommodations well, General Iroh,” Zhao said. 

Iroh smiled, seated calmly, hands resting on his knees, looking up at the armored form of Zhao through the slats of metal bars. “What would you say if I did not?”

Zhao’s eyes had a flatness to them, like the eyes of a tiger-shark. “I would be hurt that such a high-ranking member of the royal family would be so displeased.”

“Then rest assured. This is easily the nicest brig I have ever had the misfortune to stay in.”

Zhao’s mouth twisted. “I’m glad. It’s always a pleasure to receive compliments from traitors.”

Iroh had nothing to say to that, and he could see that it pissed Zhao off. Zhao started to pace in front of Iroh’s cell, two quick steps to the right, two quick steps to the left. Zhao stopped in place and grabbed the metal bars, leaning his face in to glare down at Iroh. 

“You’re not going to explain yourself?” Zhao asked, his voice uneven, halting. 

Iroh raised an eyebrow. “For what should I be explaining?”

Zhao’s grip on the bars was tight enough to create little white dots along his knuckles. “You abandoned your country. You betrayed your people. Or have you forgotten?”

Iroh’s smile turned a little sad. “Is that what you think?”

Zhao flung himself away from the cell door, letting out a grunt of disgust. He wasn’t even looking at Iroh, now. “They say that you’re broken. That Prince Zuko’s death broke you.”

Iroh’s gaze turned distant as he remembered a time, almost three years ago, now, where he was very close to breaking. But they had never shown him a body. Iroh had clung to that knowledge like the last droplet of water in a desert. If there was no body, then there was a chance. 

“After all,” Zhao said, “if your son’s death had made you break loyalty, there’s no telling what your nephew’s death would make you do.”

Iroh narrowed his eyes. “Grief is a powerful beast.”

“I am sure you suffered, General.” Odd, how Zhao still insisted on Iroh’s old title. “It’s almost tragic, really, to find you in some backwater dirt people village, living like you’re one of them.” Iroh made a face but smoothed it out when Zhao turned back to look at him. “You even picked up some colony orphan. A firebender. I’m guessing some whoresson. A halfbreed.”

Iroh kept his silence.

“Perhaps it healed you, in some way,” Zhao pondered. “Though I’m not sure it was enough.” Zhao took a step closer to the bars, his boots clicking on the metal floor. “My men tell me that you were captured helping the Avatar’s _friends_—” he said the word like it was an insult, “—escape.” 

Zhao paused, waiting for Iroh to say something. 

“An unfortunate circumstance,” Iroh said. 

Zhao frowned. He didn’t like that answer. “I expect that type of behavior from traitors. Are you a traitor, General Iroh?”

Iroh thought that he was beginning to understand Zhao’s game. In this, Iroh had no use for lying. Not here. “I will always do what is best for my country.”

“The Avatar will destroy our country. In his plight to restore balance, he will stomp our people into the ground. Is that what’s best for our country, General?”

Iroh raised an eyebrow. “Those are some very dire statements, Admiral Zhao.”

Zhao stared down at him, eyes flickering over Iroh’s face, trying to penetrate Iroh’s serene mask. The longer he stared at Iroh, the more frustrated he became. “I respected you,” he said at last. “You used to be the Dragon of the West.”

“That is not a title that one particularly has the ability to lose,” Iroh said wryly. 

His words set Zhao off. The admiral surged forward, once again clutching the bars. His voice was a scratchy yowl, bearing down on Iroh like he could make the sun turn with his orders alone. “Then start acting like it!” 

Iroh very slowly smiled. Interesting. He tried to make his voice innocent as he asked, “Then I gather you are not turning me in to the Fire Lord?”

Zhao flinched, like Iroh had taken him by surprise. He turned his head away. “It’s a waste,” he said to the ground. “I have orders to drop you off at the Boiling Rock.”

It was as Iroh had expected. What he did not expect was Zhao’s hesitance. Very interesting, indeed. “You believe that I can be better served elsewhere.”

“A man with your talents,” Zhao said, “should be used. That’s the way of the Navy. You use what you have.” Zhao cleared his throat. “The Fire Lord has put his faith in me. I don’t want to let him down.”

Iroh very much doubted that his younger brother had ever put his faith in anyone. But all Iroh said was, “I have faith that you are a man up to the task.”

* * *

—

* * *

The Avatar didn’t know anything about the layout of the colonies— not the governors, the districts, the cities, nor the towns— but then Zuko remembered that the Avatar had supposedly been born over a hundred years ago, before the war had even begun, which was such a strange thing to think about, for Zuko, and therefore Zuko felt it was necessary to inform the Avatar that, “We’re in Edano.”

“That sounds like a fish,” the Avatar said, still squashed between Zuko and June on the shirshu, talking straight into the middle of June’s back. 

“It’s a city,” Zuko said, despite how obvious it was. He wondered if maybe a regular Fire Nation citizen wouldn’t know the layout of the Fire Nation colonies, either. Zuko had no way of knowing. He had never interacted with a regular Fire Nation citizen. He somehow doubted that colony-homeland political stewardship was taught in the academies. 

He wanted to ask June but she was from the Earth Kingdom and he didn’t think she’d have much of an answer, and, besides, she would probably try to guess which family he’s from again, and he wanted to avoid that conversation as much as possible. 

The city was beautiful and old, ornate pagodas lining the street in the city center. The lanes, hard-packed cobblestone, were wide and busy, humming with the everyday motions of people going to and fro from work. Red paper lanterns were strung from building to building, unlit in broad daylight. There were more stalls in the street than there normally would be, and those extra stalls were unmanned. Little pieces of red paper littered the ground, a layer of detritus trampled underneath the thunderous weight of Nyla’s paws. 

A forgotten pamphlet lying on the road caught his eye, because it was the shape of a wanted poster. The wind kicked it up enough for Zuko to catch a glimpse of the face painted on it and Zuko’s stomach lurched. He tightened his grip on Nyla.

It was his father.

“You all right, Z—?” the Avatar tried to say. 

Zuko punched the boy’s shoulder. Hard. “Shut up,” he said. 

The Avatar rubbed his arm. “Are you allergic to any kind of basic human decency?” he asked. “That hurt!”

“Then call me by the right name!” Zuko barked. 

“I do,” the Avatar whined. 

“Whatever you’re talking about,” June interrupted, “I don’t want to know.”

Zuko liked that about June. She knew when to back off from things that were too much trouble. Or, at least, she knew when to back off from things that wouldn’t get her paid. It was really one or the other. 

It shouldn’t really surprise Zuko that they ended up at the docks. Edano didn’t have a particularly extensive port, nothing like Hua Li. In fact, there were hardly any fishing vessels or merchants at all, because a Fire Navy fleet was lined up against the boardwalk like the storm clouds of a typhoon— large, powerful, and dripping with intent. There was a familiar ship among them, which Zuko picked out easily, if not from the heraldry, then from its size. 

June pulled back Nyla’s snout to keep him from running any further. 

“Zhao’s a cockroach-worm,” Zuko snarled. “Just when I think I’ve squashed him under my boot he comes crawling back out.”

“You really badmouthing the Navy in broad daylight, Lee?” June asked, pulling Nyla back into the town, leading them on a circuitous route through the streets. 

Zuko had no problem with the Navy. He respected the Navy— enjoyed it, even. When he was younger, he had always dreamt that when he was sent off to war, like Lu Ten had been, that he’d join the Navy. Once upon a time, that ship under Zhao’s command might have been his. It was his right, after all. It should have been his. 

But dreams were for children. 

“You don’t like Zhao?” the Avatar asked him. 

“Why would I _like _a sniveling, coal-headed shit-for-brains?”

Zuko couldn’t see the Avatar’s expression, but he thought that the boy must be smiling, from the mirth in his voice. “Wow— you’re pretty scary when you’re attacking me and my friends but you’re pretty cool when you’re attacking our enemies. It’s like the Fire Lord just baked me a pie. And he didn’t even throw it at me!”

Zuko felt like he had been punched in the chest. He coughed. “The Fire Lord doesn’t even like pie,” he said before his brain caught up to his mouth, and he slammed his jaw shut, teeth clacking together. 

The Avatar laughed. June laughed, too, one of her dark, surly chuckles. 

Oh. They thought he was joking. 

Zuko wisely didn’t say anything else. 

They bought tempura from a busy street stand. It was midday, and the city was as lively as it was bound to get. Zuko was glad to finally walk around. Riding Nyla for hours at a time made him want to stab the nearest civilian and roast his flesh over a pit. 

He handed the Avatar his fried eggplant. The Avatar didn’t eat fish, he had learned. He didn’t eat meat, either. The airbenders were vegetarians. Zuko thought he might have remembered reading something about that when he was younger, but he couldn’t be sure. 

Zuko wondered when he had stopped treating the Avatar like his prisoner and more like an unruly child that he was in charge of babysitting. 

The three of them snagged a table in the corner of the city square, sitting warily down, June and Zuko across from each other, the Avatar at Zuko’s side, Nyla towering over them all— and began to conspire. 

“You don’t suppose they’ll just _let_ us take him?” June teased, flipping a loose dark pleat of hair over her shoulder. 

“Take a guess.” Zuko leaned his chin on his fist. He thought for a moment. There really seemed to be no other way around it. “I’m going to sneak onto the ship and break him out.”

“No!” June and the Avatar yelled at exactly the same time. 

Zuko looked doubtfully between the two of them. June and the Avatar had caught each other’s eyes, shocked at first, but now their brows settled into a firm line. The Avatar nodded, and June slowly followed suit. 

Zuko suspiciously took a bite of his fried squid. 

“You’re not going anywhere, idiot apprentice,” June declared, banging her fist onto the table. 

“Not your apprentice anymore,” Zuko said. 

“You think I can’t _make _you?”

“You want to try?”

June cracked her knuckles. 

“What she’s trying to say,” the Avatar jutted in peaceably, “is that there might be an easier way.”

Zuko shifted his glare onto the Avatar. 

The Avatar started to sweat. “I mean.” He tapped his fingers together. “Not that I can think of one, right now. Exactly.”'

“I can,” June said, and Zuko let up on the Avatar. The Avatar let out a quiet sigh. “The answer’s pretty simple actually. We’re bounty hunters.”

“Congrats, June. Always knew you had it in you.”

“I’m going to turn you into a bleeding corpse.”

Zuko bore his teeth. “Not before I skewer you through the spine, you coin grubbing hag.”

The Avatar gently banged his head on the table. “I miss Katara,” he whispered into the wooden slats. 

“Shut your stupid mouth for a second and listen to me, brat.” June slashed her finger at Zuko’s face. “We’re bounty hunters. And Nyla’s telling me that there’s a _stowaway_ on that Admiral’s ship. Aren’t you, boy?” she gushed to the shirshu. 

June began stroking Nyla’s nose, while Zuko turned thoughtful. “A stowaway, huh?”

June nodded significantly. “A stowaway could be hiding anywhere. And people trust Nyla’s nose. They trust me.”

“It could work,” Zuko admitted. “It’ll get us on. But it won’t get him out.”

“I’ll scout it out. Find out where he’s held. Look for weaknesses.”

“What do you mean _you’ll_ scout it out?” 

June frowned, squaring her shoulders. “Doesn’t this Zhao-douche know your face inside-out? You’re not getting anywhere near that ship.”

Zuko scowled furiously at his tempura. 

“Try to tell me I’m wrong,” she taunted. 

Zuko pressed his lips into a thin line and said nothing. He looked over at the Avatar, and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was looking for some kind of support. 

The Avatar had leaned his face on his hand. “Why does Zhao know who you are? I’m pretty sure you were disguised the entire time you broke me out of that tower.”

“I ran into him another time,” Zuko said. 

The Avatar sarcastically nodded. “Is he always this descriptive?” he whispered to June, using his free hand to shield his mouth from Zuko. 

“One time he broke his arm by getting pushed off a cliff and only said he’d gotten it by ‘being slow.’”

Zuko sank back in his seat and tried to keep his face blank and unblushing as the Avatar and June both started laughing. “Can we get back on track, idiots?”

June reached over and tried to swat at Zuko’s farmer’s hat. Zuko shifted out of the way. “Watch who you’re calling an idiot, _idiot,” _June said. 

“Maybe idiot is a term of endearment?” the Avatar pondered to himself, stroking his chin. 

Zuko punched him for that.

“We don’t have all day,” Zuko said. “The more time we waste, the more time Zhao has to leave the bay and take my uncle to the Boiling Rock.”

The Avatar was rubbing his shoulder with an unrepentant grin. “Boiling Rock?”

“It’s the worst prison in the Fire Nation,” June explained. “Those lunatics built it on a boiling lake.”

“Nobody’s ever broken out.” Zuko tried not to think about it too much. He tried to skirt around the idea, like looking only at its shadow. Maybe then it wouldn’t suffocate him. “I don’t want to let it get to that point. Uncle’s here, right now. We need to act.”

“All right,” June said, sliding off the bench. “When’d you get so bossy, brat? Oh wait, never mind. You’ve always been a little brat prince.” 

Zuko thought he did a very good job of not flinching. 

June shot him an enigmatic look as she prepared to mount Nyla. 

“Should we pick a meeting spot?” the Avatar asked. 

June winked at the airbender as she just kicked Nyla’s sides, and leaped straight over the table. Zuko watched as the woman and shirshu disappeared around a street corner. 

The Avatar turned his confused gaze onto Zuko. 

“Nyla knows where we are,” he said, shrugging. “Doesn’t matter where we go.”

“That’s— creepy.”

Zuko shrugged. “You get used to it.”

The Avatar continued to look at him, grey eyes steady and warm. Zuko realized they might be having a ‘moment’ and quickly pushed himself to his feet. 

“Hey, Zuko,” the Avatar began. 

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “How many times do you I have to tell you that you can’t call me that?”

“Until you tell me the real reason why,” the Avatar said slyly. 

Zuko opened his eyes and furtively checked his surroundings. Nobody seemed to be paying them much attention. He didn’t feel like he was being watched any more than he normally did. But, still. “We’ve been here too long. Let’s move.”

It wasn’t until they had passed through into the less reputable part of town, where the layer of detritus was less colorful paper and more dirt and trash, and the buildings were humble, unpainted dwellings of wood, that the Avatar finally got back to his original question. 

“What’s with the lanterns and the red paper?”

Zuko blinked down at him. He remembered, again, that the Avatar had been born over a hundred years ago. “It’s the Fire Days Festival. Must have passed through the city a few days ago.”

“A festival!” the Avatar said, and there might as well have been sparkles in his eyes. Though as soon as his mood lifted, it dropped like a rock. His shoulders slumped. “And we missed it.”

Was Zuko supposed to comfort him? Zuko had a sudden image of himself patting the Avatar on the back with his swords and saying, “There, there.” It didn’t seem like a very good idea. 

“Yeah, well.” Zuko cleared his throat. “Get over yourself.”

* * *

—

* * *

With Sokka’s arm slung over Katara’s shoulder, they hobbled out of the healing hut into a strangely quiet town. The ground underneath them was rumbling, shaking, and Katara worried that it would crack right underneath her, plunging her into the dead darkness of the earth. 

Everyone on the street had stopped, and they all stared up at the volcano. Their stillness was bizarre, like their bodies had been frozen in ice, their eyes wide and uncomprehending. 

“Katara,” Sokka said, not daring to raise his voice over a whisper. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” she said, a crawling panic skittering along her skin. “Everyone’s looking at the volcano.”

“The _volcano_?” Sokka squeaked. 

Katara tried to shrug, scanning the frozen streets. She watched as a mother picked up her toddler and clenched him to her chest. She watched as a man with red shoes fell onto his knees. It felt familiar to her, suddenly. The prisms of ice finally converged, letting the light shine through unobscured. Her heart beat a pattern into her chest. _Go find your dad, sweetie. I’ll handle this. _

“They’re going to be attacked,” Katara whispered. 

A loud crack reverberated through the air, loud enough to cause everyone in the village to clutch at their ears. A child started to cry, a low wail. 

Sokka took his arm off Katara’s shoulders and stood up straight. She spared him a worried look but his face was a grim mask. 

A yellow blur caught in the corner of Katara’s eye, and she turned and saw what must be Aunt Wu, slipping out of the back of her house, a small bag clutched in her arms. 

Katara grabbed Sokka and ran after her. 

“Aunt Wu!” Katara yelled, and she saw the older woman flinch. She marched up to Aunt Wu like she would march up to a Fire Nation soldier, planting her hands on her hips and demanding, “Where do you think you’re going?” 

Like a fearful animal, Aunt Wu’s eyes would not stop skittering in circles. “My dear, it’s time to go.” She grabbed Katara’s shoulder and tried to push her backwards, her nails like talons.

Sokka shoved Aunt Wu’s hand away. “_Why_ is it time to go? What’s going on?”

Aunt Wu tittered, a short, hysterical giggle. “Of course, guests wouldn’t know. The children won’t know, either. It hasn’t happened in fifty years. They trusted me. That’s what made it so good, you know. The trust. They gave me anything— anything I asked for.” She tittered again. 

“You said the volcano wouldn’t erupt!” Katara yelled, and the idea of it, of this fraud masquerading as a fortuneteller, telling a whole village that their death wasn’t right around the corner, nearly felled her. “They trusted you!”

Aunt Wu looked to the streets, her head jerking back and forth. “There’s no time left. The final crack has already happened—”

Katara met her brother’s startled gaze. 

“Appa,” he said. 

Katara felt like her throat was being strangled when she said, “Appa can’t take everyone.”

She watched as Sokka’s face was overcome by a grimace. There was a deep line between his brows, and Katara wondered if it will ever go away. “Then we’ll take the children,” he said. 

Instead of saying anything else, the two of them left Aunt Wu behind. 

“Wait!” Katara heard the fortuneteller yell, but she blocked out the sound with a will of iron. She couldn’t allow herself to think about it. She couldn’t allow herself to think about the vindictive pleasure she took in the knowledge that the fortuneteller would die here, with the village she killed. Tui and La, she wondered what Aang would have done. She wondered what Aang would think of her now. 

“The volcano is going to blow!” Sokka yelled as they emerged back onto the main street. Frozen eyes turned to Sokka like he was a talking hogmonkey. “Everyone run for the gate! Everyone who can’t run and children come with me!” 

The ground rumbled again, and another loud crack cut through the air. Katara winced and clutched at her ears. 

“Run!” Sokka screeched, his throat ground raw, pointing away from the volcano. “What are you doing? Why are you just standing there? Run!”

All it took was one man’s hesitant steps, before the whole village was pulled into a stampede. Katara managed to grab her brother’s arm before the village hit them like an ocean, sea water all she could breathe. Someone’s hand hit her face and she nearly toppled to the ground, but Sokka caught her and wrapped his arms around her, clutching her to his chest. 

“We need to get to Appa!” he yelled into her ear. 

Someone’s elbow slammed into Katara’s ribs and she winced. 

When the screaming started, they knew they were out of time. Sokka swung out his arm, punching his way through the crowd, shoving men and women to the ground. Katara thought she could hear him apologizing. 

They were moving toward the volcano, which meant the crowd eventually thinned, and soon they could burst out into a full-out run, making for the barn where Appa had been laying outside Kaku's hut. 

They passed an openly weeping elderly woman clutching a swaddled baby to her chest, and stopped long enough to drag her to her feet and pull her alongside them.

“I can’t run!” the elderly woman sobbed. “I can’t run!”

“You don’t have a choice!” Katara yelled, pushing the elderly woman in front of them. 

They passed a child that couldn’t be more than four, a fuzzy head of black hair, and Sokka grabbed her and threw her onto his shoulder without pausing. 

They saw Appa, at long last. The air bison was out on the street, pacing, his roar a deep underpinning to the noise around them, Momo swirling around his head. 

There were people in Appa’s saddle. Katara could make out a woman clutching a younger girl, and a man slashing at Appa with Appa’s reigns, mouth open in some kind of yell. 

“Oh, great,” Sokka snarled, and pushed his toddler into Katara’s arms. Katara pulled her tight to her chest. When they neared Appa, Sokka jumped and swung himself up into the saddle with the strange villagers. 

The elderly woman continued to sob, “I can’t run,” but now it was barely a whisper, a mere motion of her trembling lips.

“Give me your baby!” Katara yelled to her. “Sokka will pull you up!” She gestured up at the saddle. 

The elderly woman shook her head, and Katara wondered if she even knew what was going on. Katara reached out her free hand and rested it solidly on the elderly woman’s shoulder. “Look at me.” She squeezed the elderly woman’s shoulder until she looked at Katara. “We’re going to get out of here alive. But you have to trust me. You need to get onto the bison.”

Something in Katara’s eyes must have convinced her, because the elderly woman handed over her baby. Sokka reached down and hefted the elderly woman into the saddle like she was little more than a bag of grain. The toddler came next, and then finally Katara climbed up Appa with the elderly woman’s baby. 

“Get this bleeding cow-sheep to fly!” a fully-bearded man well over thirty yelled down at Sokka, spittle flying into Sokka’s calm face. “I know it can! I saw it come into town!”

The woman who had come with the man clenched her eyes shut, holding tight to her daughter. Katara thought she could hear her humming to herself. 

“We’re not leaving until we’ve taken as many people as we can!” Sokka said, and despite the fact that he was much shorter, his words had the weight of finality that the other man lacked. It reminded her of something, but she could not think of what. Sokka shoved the man out of the way and took a seat on Appa’s head. He spared one gentle pat for the air bison, before he grabbed the reins and declared, “Yip yip!”

Appa frantically lurched into the sky. Appa had never acted like this before, rushed and panicked, every sweep of his tail an attack of thunderous air, and Katara and the toddler clutched at each other. The man nearly lost his balance and would have tumbled out of the saddle had he not caught it at the right time. 

Sokka brought Appa up a mere twenty feet over the village, skimming through the buildings. Katara knew what he was trying to do and pushed herself to her feet. There must be more people they could take with them. 

One look at the horizon was all it took for her to realize that the village was doomed. Lava swirled down like a tsunami. It pooled down into the farthest edges of the village and ate buildings like a great evil spirit, consuming the wood and nails and thatching like a killer whale sucking the skin off a seal. 

Katara and Sokka both yelled, “I see someone!” at the same time. They turned to look at each other, and it was with dawning horror that they had both seen different people. 

The air had begun to warm, like the smoky air of a tent heated by a fire, and the horizon was little more than a long string of grey smoke curling into the sky. 

“I’m landing!” Sokka yelled, twisting Appa’s reins.

“What are you doing!?” the man screamed, and he dove for Sokka’s back. 

Katara didn’t hesitate as she flung herself at the man and tried to rip his hair from his head. Sokka must have landed a good blow into the man’s stomach, because the man let go of her brother, and Katara pulled him back into the saddle. 

The man wiped away a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, his eyes bitter slits of fire. Katara shifted her feet, moving one back behind the other, lowering into a stance. 

“You’re going to kill us all!” the man screeched. 

“We’re going to save as many as we can!” Katara yelled. “Help us or find your own way out!”

“You’re just some stupid kids!” The man advanced on her, and Katara let her hand rest on her water pouch. “You don’t know anything!”

The woman who was presumably his wife began humming louder, as if to block the yelling out entirely.

“We know enough,” Katara said, bringing out a string of water and hanging it between them. She nervously swallowed. “Back off before you get hurt.”

Appa’s feet hit the burning ground and they all stumbled. Behind her, Sokka yelled, “I’m going!” She heard him slip off Appa’s head. 

The man stood very still and glowered down at her. There was a light in his eyes that was too bright, but maybe it was the heat, which shimmered in the air, covering them all in sweat. “I’m not dying here.”

“We’re not going to,” Katara said. 

The man swung his fist at her face and Katara swayed her hands up and encased it in ice. The ice was weeping before her eyes, and keeping it cold took a constant effort. Katara’s breathing became labored. The man growled and tried to pull his fist free. Sweat dripped down his brow. Sweat dripped down all their brows. 

The humming woman suddenly screamed. Katara turned to look at her and she was pointing down at the street, where an elderly man hobbled away from the torrent of lava pouring down over the cobblestone. Katara watched in horror as the elderly man tripped, and the lava flowed over him like a thick blanket. 

Katara turned away and yelled, “Sokka!” 

They needed to go. She left the man behind her and stopped focusing on the ice. She settled onto Appa’s head. Her brother must be coming back. Any second now he’d stumble into view with another person, and then they could all escape together. 

She waited a long, tense moment. All she heard was the horrible crackling of the lava, the soft weeping of the villagers in Appa’s saddle. Her brother was going to emerge any second. 

And he did. He ran out into the street, carrying a young boy slung over his shoulder with a leg so terribly burned that it was charred black. 

Sokka leaped into the saddle, panting, sweat soaking through his clothes, soot and mud coating his face.

Katara nearly cried as she yelled, “Yip yip!”

Appa once again frantically took to the air. She watched as lava overtook the ground they had just been standing on and continued to swirl over buildings, melt down wooden gates, and fuse cobblestones together. The heat was nearly unbearable, and Katara could not stop Appa from flying up much higher into the air, where the smoke was less pungent and the air much cooler. The village below them did not look so much like a village, now. It looked like a coin of molten metal. 

“Katara,” Sokka whispered to her. She jumped in place, before turning to look at her brother’s soot-stained face. “Someone’s injured. Can you heal them?” 

“I—” her voice seemed to stop working. She tried again. “Yes.” She handed the reins to Sokka, who gave her a gentle pat on the back, and climbed back into the saddle. The young boy laid flat in the middle of it. From the middle of his thigh to the tip of his foot, there was only charred flesh. She wanted to throw up when she realized that bits of his robe had been fused to his skin. The boy couldn’t have been older than eight. 

The man who had caused them so much trouble now sat next to his wife. He said nothing as Katara pulled what water was left in her waterskin and coated her hands. 

“I’m sorry,” Katara said. Her fingertips graced the boy’s blackened flesh and her mind reeled with the sense of _wrongness._ “I’m sorry,” she said again. The boy did not seem to be conscious. She felt under his nose for his breath, and when she felt it, she continued trying to heal him. It felt like she was doing nothing. It felt like there was nothing to do. She clenched her fists. 

She flung herself up to look at the man. “Do you know of any healers?” she asked. 

The man blinked. “Healers,” he said slowly.

Katara turned her heated gaze to the rest of the group. The humming woman and her daughter. The elderly woman and her baby. The toddler. 

“Is there anywhere we can go?” Katara asked, desperately.

The man seemed very slow to draw his words. “There’s the Abbey.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s where the nuns of the spirit Gemu live. We used to trade with them— before.” The man covered his head with his hands. His voice was muffled when he said, “Most villages around here are Fire Nation. We— we wanted to stay neutral.”

Katara clenched her fists. “Where’s the Abbey?”

“Northwest. On the coast.”

“Are they with the Fire Nation?” she had to ask. 

The man shook his head. “The nuns don’t affiliate.”

Katara turned around. “Sokka, did you hear that? We’re going northwest.”

Momo had settled onto her brother’s shoulder. The lemur looked sad, somehow, his ears drooping along his back like a shroud. Her brother, on the other hand, gave nothing away. “Got it,” he said, and he gently shifted Appa in the right direction. 

Katara wondered if she will ever get the scent of burning flesh out of her nose. 

* * *

—

* * *

It took them three long, painful hours to reach the Abbey. Nobody had spoken much. Katara had spent the entire time with water on her palms, attempting to heal a leg that she thought might be beyond saving. The man’s wife had started to pray to Guanyin. How ironic to hear a prayer to the greater earth spirit while the air still held all its power over them. 

The man had apologized. “Listen, it was life and death in there,” he had said. “I’ve got a kid.” He gestured to his weeping daughter. “You have to understand. I didn’t want to. But sometimes a man has to. That’s the way of the world.”

Katara kept her gaze cool. “Well,” she huffed. “Sometimes the way of the world is wrong.”

The man winced. “I really didn’t want to.”

Katara kept her mind focused on the boy’s leg. “Take that up with all the children who died in Makapu.”

The man didn’t say much else. 

The abbey was a small compound at the base of a tall forested mountain. From above, most of what they saw was a paved central courtyard, where tiny figures could be seen moving to and fro, and there was a ring of buildings surrounding it, including a large wooden building with curved roofs and wooden pillars. There was one large gate, ornately lined in blue, and Appa landed in front of it. 

As Katara and Sokka helped their few villagers to the ground, a few nuns emerged from the gate. Katara had never heard of a nun before, but they seemed to be all women, of all ages, and they kept their heads wrapped in fabric. A few women wore beaded necklaces, while others had none. Most of their clothing looked like plain brown and white muslin. 

“To what do we owe this visit?” one nun asked, middle-aged and dumpy, wrinkles in the corner of her eyes. 

Katara felt heavy, as if the knowledge of what had happened had burdened her, leaving her a weight that she will forever have to lift. “Makapu’s volcano erupted,” she said simply. “More might have escaped, but we’re all that’s—” she didn’t know how to finish, “—here.”

“We need shelter,” Sokka said, carrying the injured boy as gingerly as possible, hefted over his shoulder so as not to aggravate his leg. “And we need a healer. This boy needs it.”

The nuns conferred with themselves. Katara could make out murmurs of worry and curiosity, and a mention of some ‘Mother Superior.’ One nun stepped forward and asked to take the boy from Sokka, and it was as easy as that. 

The nuns took them all in. 

Nearly everyone was rushed to the infirmary, one of those rooms in the ring around the courtyard, but Sokka and Katara were stopped by one of the nuns. The group of villagers seemed relieved to be in capable hands, all except the young toddler, who clung to Katara’s legs. It was only with some gentle prodding that a nun held her by the hand and took her with the rest of the group. 

The nun asked them to wait in the courtyard, and returned with a nun with two beaded necklaces and a habit that was slightly different from the other ones. Katara gave Sokka a look as the woman approached and said, “Hello there, young ones. I see your journey has been very hard, and I pray that the Lady Gemu may guide you on your journey to recovery. I am known as the Mother Superior. I oversee this sanctuary.”

“Right,” Sokka said curtly, giving her a short bow. “I’m Sokka. This is my sister, Katara. Thanks for taking everyone in. You’re doing them all a huge favor.”

The Mother Superior smiled. “It is our pleasure to help those in need.”

“There may be more people that escaped Makapu that could use your help,” Katara said. “If that’s possible.”

The elderly nun frowned. “Makapu is quite some distance from here. Even if we could offer some aid, it may take days to arrive.”

Katara winced. It was just as she had suspected. 

“We could do it,” Sokka said. 

Katara looked up at her brother. His face was stern in a way that it wasn’t usually. Again, it reminded her of something. “If we take Appa, you mean.” 

“It’ll still take time, but not as much,” Sokka finished. 

Katara swallowed. “Sokka,” she said, grabbing her brother and moving them a couple steps away from the Mother Superior, not caring how rude it was. “Sokka, a relief effort like that could take weeks. Aang is still missing. We need to get him to the North Pole as soon as possible. You’re the one who’s always talking about our schedule—”

“You’re the one who’s always trying to help people,” Sokka shot back, and Katara flinched. “There’s no one else in the world who can help them right now. The Avatar isn’t here. It’s just us, Katara. It’s just two people from the Southern Water Tribe with a sky bison.”

Katara crossed her arms. She tried to smile, but she wasn’t sure that it worked. “I hate when you’re right.”

“Oh?” A bit of his usual cheekiness finally sunk back in. “You mean all the time?” 

“Don’t get too full of yourself.”

“Excuse me?” the Mother Superior broke in. Katara and Sokka both turned to look at her. “I couldn’t help but overhear that you said you were from the Southern Water Tribe. Do you perhaps know someone called Bato?”

* * *

—

* * *

Bato’s room felt like home. A warm hearth stood in the center of the room, with an iron pot perched over it, sizzling with stewed sea prunes. The walls were covered in skins, and there was even a ceremonial raccoon headpiece. Of course, there was also Bato himself. Katara hadn’t seen him in so long that his face had once been a fuzzy shape in her mind. Now it was clear. 

For the first time in days, Katara felt calm. 

“I never expected to find you kids here,” Bato said. There were bandages wrapped around his shoulder. “Never in a million years.”

Sokka had started smiling again. “How do you think _we_ feel?”

Bato laughed. “I suppose so.”

The question burst out of her, a frantic exhalation. “Is Dad here?” 

Bato sighed and shook his head. “No. He and the other warriors should be in the Eastern Earth Kingdom by now.”

The news hurt. Between the moment that Bato’s name had been uttered, to the moment that Bato had emerged from his room and hugged them, Katara had jumped to the idea of her dad. Her dad could fix this mess. Her dad could fix anything, if he was here. But he wasn’t here. He hadn’t been here in a long time. 

“But enough about him,” Bato said, and it was clear he was trying to distract them. “What about you? What brings you here with such strange company, on such a strange beast?”

The story fell out of them in bits and pieces. Some of it was very painful, especially as they drew nearer to their current time. 

“You are both very brave,” Bato told them solemnly, resting a hand on each of their shoulders. They felt his sincerity in their bones. “Not many would have done the same.” He squeezed their shoulders and his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “I am proud to call you members of my tribe.”

Katara was not ashamed to admit that she cried. She didn’t look over at Sokka, but she thought his breathing might have hitched, and she carefully didn’t mention it when he wiped at the corner of his eyes. 

“And now you want to help them some more,” Bato continued. “Despite your duty to the Avatar.”

Sokka cleared his throat. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Bato frowned at them. He stroked his chin, studying them both. “You’ve both grown so much. You must be fifteen, Sokka.” He gestured at Katara. “And you, fourteen.” Bato’s face became downturned, the firelight casting deep shadows in the bags under his eyes. He looked tired. “Too young to join a war.”

Maybe Sokka might have said something indignant, once upon a time, at being called a child. Maybe Katara might have yelled that she was just as capable as anyone else. But neither of them did anything of the sort. 

“I know,” Sokka said. Soot still covered his face. 

“There’s no one else who can do it,” Katara said. She felt tired, herself. 

Bato’s frown cut deep lines in his face. “It is shameful that our generation has failed you, to let this war go on so long.” He bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Bato,” Katara said gently. “There’s no time to apologize. We’ll need everyone, if this war is ever going to end.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Wise words.” His gaze turned distant, as he looked at something over their shoulders. “Still, I must caution you. Taking this time to help this village may be important, but the Avatar is even more so. Getting the Avatar to the North Pole may, in the long run, save more lives than the lives of these villagers.”

Sokka and Katara exchanged a look. 

“We don’t even know where Aang is,” Katara entreated. “But we do know where Makapu is. We do know that there may be some injured people who managed to make it out, and we have the ability to do something about it.”

Bato nodded to himself. “Those are the words of a warrior. I’m sure Hakoda would be proud of both of you.”

Katara and Sokka smiled, each a bit teary eyed. 

“And speaking of Hakoda,” Bato said, “I’m expecting a message pretty soon. It should tell me the next rendezvous point. Meaning— after you’ve done all you can, of course— you can travel with me.” Bato shrugged, leaning back on one hand. “Someone may have heard something about the Avatar. It might give you a shooting off point.”

The hope of finally seeing dad again, after so many years, rose in her heart like a broken wing. 

“But wait,” Sokka choked out, and she could see that he was struggling with his own hope. "Didn't you say that he was in the Eastern Earth Kingdom? We're all the way in the west."

“It all depends on the message," Bato said. "Hakoda's ships are fast and true. They may be closer than we think."

"Or they may not," Katara said. 

Bato shrugged. "Either way, we will know soon enough."

* * *

—

* * *

There were only two people that his nephew would ever go to for help, and one of them would only be if both of Zuko’s arms were tied behind his back. Iroh considered himself blessed to be among that exclusive group of two. June, the bounty hunter, a beautiful and terrifying Earth Kingdom woman, probably considered herself cursed to be among the same group. 

“Found you, old man,” June whispered through the slats of the metal bars. “I’ve got a minute left before the guard comes back. They’re suspicious of me. Won’t let me out of their sight.”

Iroh stood up and walked over to her. He enunciated each word very clearly, his fist clenching one of the bars. “They are not taking me to Boiling Rock. The Fire Nation is going to invade the North Pole, and Zhao thinks I will help him.”

June’s single visible eye widened. 

“As soon as you leave this ship, the ship will set out. Especially when you leave with no stowaway. Zhao will consider that very suspicious.” Iroh took in a breath. “Tell my nephew that I will find him again. Tell him not to worry.”

“Old man—”

“Be careful and be wary,” Iroh finished. “Take care of him.” He stepped back into the center of the cell. 

When the guards burst back into the room, Iroh sat serenely in the center of the cell. 

“He’s not here, either,” June announced to the guards. “Slippery bastard.”

Iroh listened to them all tromp away. 

* * *

—

* * *

There was truly no other sound like the sound of Nyla’s paws tearing through a city. Each step quaked the earth, reverberating in an almost subsonic rumble. 

Zuko dropped the thief on the ground and spun toward the entrance of the alleyway. He dusted off his hands. Finally, June was back. Finally, he could get his uncle back. Finally, he could stop his endless waiting. 

June came into view, perched on Nyla’s back, and there was a pinched look on her face, like she hadn’t gotten her payment. 

“Stop bullying street urchins and come with me, brat,” June said, gesturing towards herself. There was something less sharp about her voice, like her heart wasn’t in it. 

Zuko didn’t bother to say anything. He and the Avatar joined her on top of Nyla, and she took them back through the city, towards the docks. He wasn’t sure why they were heading towards the docks without any kind of debrief, but then he realized. 

The docks were empty. His uncle was gone. 

Zuko wished that he could be angry. He wanted fury to fill his veins so that he didn’t feel the nothingness that was clawing up from his stomach. He had missed his chance. His uncle was going to be imprisoned in— He couldn’t think about it. He felt his breath hitch. He couldn’t think about it. 

Zuko didn’t realize when they had started moving, he only realized when they had stopped. They were back in the outskirts of Edano. At a small sea-side bench. There was no beach, just a rocky cliff face leading down to the broiling ocean. There was no one around. He slid off Nyla. 

“Lee, listen to me, okay?” June said, her voice oddly kind, tugging Nyla’s annoyed head back under control. “Zhao’s not taking the old man to the Boiling Rock.”

Zuko stared out at the ocean. He thought he could see the cruisers on the horizon. Or it might have been a shadow. “He’s— not?” he asked carefully. 

“I was only able to speak with him briefly, but he told me enough.” 

The Avatar had joined Zuko on the ground, and he stood to Zuko’s right, his small, expressive face full of concern. For Zuko, of all people. June’s next words wiped that expression clear off the Avatar’s face. 

“Zhao’s been ordered to invade the North Pole.”

It was like a large dark cloud had lumbered over the Avatar’s clear blue sky. His mouth widened in horror, as if in slow motion. The bags under his eyes deepened, and the bruises on his face became stark against the paleness of his skin. The Avatar gasped like a wounded thing and demanded, “They’re not!”

“They _will_,” June deadpanned. “I don’t know when. Probably soon.”

The Avatar ran his hand over his bald head, knocking back his hood, exposing his arrow. His voice was breathy, panicked. “No, no— they can’t! It’s too soon!”

“It’s happening,” June ground out. 

“Everyone, shut up!” Zuko yelled. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. For once, it seemed like they had followed his orders, because there was a ringing silence. He basked in it, before he let out a single, deeply controlled breath. “Zhao somehow thinks my uncle will help him.”

“Right on the money,” June said. 

Zuko let out another controlled breath. “This is good.”

“This is _not_ good!” the Avatar yelled. 

Zuko opened his eyes and spun to face him. The Avatar’s eyes were wide, too wide. He couldn’t control his breathing. It was the Avatar’s responsibility to stop the Fire Nation, wasn’t it? And yet here he was, miles away from the North Pole, miles away from his flying bison, and miles away from freedom. That was all Zuko’s fault. 

Zuko wanted to laugh. _What a joke._ Here he was, doing his duty to the Fire Nation, even from beyond the grave. His father should be proud. 

Zuko clenched his fists, feeling the sharp points of his nails digging into his palms. “We know where my uncle will be.”

Nyla shifted on his feet. The shirshu seemed unsettled this afternoon. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” June snarled. “What’re you going to do, invade an invasion fleet?” She spit at the ground. “You can’t be that dumb, brat.”

Zuko turned and met June’s gaze. He tried to make her understand. She had to understand. 

After a moment, her shoulders slumped. “I guess you can be that dumb,” she said quietly. 

The Avatar rubbed at his eyes. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me see if I know what’s going on here.” He clapped his hands together. “The Fire Nation is invading the North Pole. You’re going to the North Pole—” he pointed at Zuko, “—to invade the Fire Nation.”

Zuko faced the ocean. The wind curled through his hair. “Yes.”

The Avatar closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. He let it out slowly, ruffling all of his clothes. 

When he finally opened his eyes, he must have dredged up some deeply buried source of levity, some hidden power known only to airbenders. The Avatar started by waggling his eyebrows. Then a smirk curled his mouth into a wide, mischievous grin. He perched his hands on his hips, and drawled, “Well, well, well, crazy fire swordsman. It seems that you’re in a bit of a predicament.”

Zuko crossed his arms. 

“It seems like you’re in need of a ride to the North Pole,” the Avatar continued. He rubbed his chin contemplatively. “If only there was a person with a sky bison who could take you there.”

“You don’t _have_ a sky bison,” Zuko pointed out. 

The Avatar flung up his finger. “Appa’s not with me right now, but we can find him, can’t we? June can find anything.”

After a moment, June let out, “Maybe. If you have something for Nyla to smell.”

The Avatar deflated. He dejectedly patted down the front of his robes, but evidently, he did not have something for Nyla to smell. 

However, Zuko was thinking. He was thinking that the Avatar’s plan really wasn’t all that bad, despite whose plan it was. There was nothing that moved faster than a flying bison. He wouldn’t have to play catch-up. He could arrive at the North Pole well before Zhao’s fleet. It was the only plan that gave him half a chance at saving his uncle, and Zuko would be a fool if he didn’t take it. 

“All right,” Zuko said. “Take me to the North Pole.”

The Avatar smirked. “Not so fast.” He jangled his handcuffs. “Price for passage.”

Zuko’s plans for the Avatar were so far removed from his mind that it took him a second to remember why the Avatar was in chains in the first place. When he did, he carefully re-considered what he was doing. If he released the Avatar, that meant he was giving up. 

Zuko didn’t give up. 

But Zuko couldn’t let his uncle languish in a cell. Not after everything his uncle had done for him. 

In the end, it wasn’t even a choice. Zuko pulled out his dao and slashed off the Avatar’s handcuffs in two clean strikes. His swords were sheathed before the metal rings hit the ground. He watched as the Avatar joyfully flexed his wrists and felt sick again. He remembered the moment when his handcuffs had come off for the last time. He hoped the Avatar’s wrists wouldn’t scar, not like Zuko’s. 

“Yes!” the Avatar exclaimed to the sky. “Appa, here I come!”

Zuko shoved the Avatar’s hood back over his head. “Shut up. Someone could hear you.”

The Avatar had the decency to look chagrined. 

* * *

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FOLKS i have SEEN YOUR PLEA. THE MOVEMENT #LetZukoSayFuck HAS GAINED MUCH STRENGTH, AND I CANNOT DENY MY PEOPLE. THEREFORE, 
> 
> Zuko may say fuck. ONCE. And I won't tell you where. You must find it in the upcoming 30+ chapters.


	8. Wanted: Avatar Aang - Part I

On days when Zuko didn’t force himself to collapse into an exhausted stupor, he dreamed. They weren’t good dreams. Zuko had never had a good dream (not even when his mother had been alive) — wasn’t even sure what a good dream would look like, wasn’t even sure that he would ever know. It seemed much more likely that he would die before he’d ever have one. 

When his eyes closed, the dream began, flickering into images of sound and pain. In that blackness, his father told him, “You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher.” In that blackness, his father told him, “Don’t make me regret saving you.” In that blackness, his guard, Bashira, told him, “If you do good, we’ll get you some better meals.” In that blackness, Zuko had stopped eating. 

It was best to keep his eyes open. It was best to feel the hilt of the dao in his hand and hear the _shink_ of the honing steel slide against the edge of his sword. _Shink. _That was behind him, now. _Shink._ He was free to do as he pleased. _Shink. _No one will ever take him again. _Shink. _He’d kill them, first. _Shink. _He’d kill them. 

Zuko looked down and realized that there was blood on his hands. He turned his palm over to look at it in the dim orange light of the campfire. He’d nicked himself. He watched the blood pool into the bowl of his palm. Stupid. He should be better than this. Zuko slowly closed his fist. Stupid. 

June pulled herself onto the log next to him. He twitched. He hadn’t heard her move. 

He didn’t look up at her. “You should be asleep,” he said. 

She leaned her elbows on her knees. “Don’t tell me what to do, brat. Your spirit-damned toothpick polishing could wake an army.”

Zuko scoffed, “Your snoring could wake an army.”

“I don’t _snore.”_

Zuko didn’t say anything. He turned his dao over in his lap. He checked the edge with his thumb. June kicked a branch into the campfire and it spit sparks up into the sky. 

“Nothing’s ever easy with you,” June sighed, like it had been weighing on her. “You’ve got the luck of the Blue Spirit.”

Zuko paused in his examination and finally glanced to his right. “You’ve seen that opera?”

June smirked. Her hair was entirely loose, not in her customary topknot. She only wore makeup in the city, and now, deep in the woods, her face was plain. There was a scar on her lip. The red tattoo on her upper arm flashed orange in the firelight. “We’ve known each other for two years, but we barely know a thing about each other.” 

“I know you’re a pain in the ass,” Zuko said. 

“Tough words from an even _bigger_ pain in the ass,” she said, smiling. The smile slid off her face when Zuko didn’t smile back. Zuko never smiled back. “C’mon,” she said. “Seriously, don’t you want to know about me? That’s a trick question. If you say no, I’m going to punch you.”

“No,” Zuko said. 

“Masochist,” June said as she punched him in the shoulder. Zuko let himself sway with the force, but it didn’t help much. June was very strong. He winced. 

“Tell me one reason why you can’t sleep at night,” June said, “and I’ll tell you one of mine.”

“You sleep fine,” Zuko grumbled. 

The campfire crackled. The Avatar turned over in his sleep and re-curled himself into a tight ball. Zuko thought the boy might have mumbled something, but he couldn’t hear him. 

“Nobody sleeps fine,” June said. “Not even the Fire Lord.”

Zuko tightened his grip on his dao. “It doesn’t matter.” He felt the campfire’s heat like a heartbeat, and it flickered once before Zuko released his hold on it. 

“Doesn’t it?” June mused, her entire profile laced with shadow. Zuko couldn’t place her expression if he tried. “I never knew my mother,” June told him, apropos of nothing. “My father had wanted a son. Imagine his disappointment. Isn’t that nice? He was a great man. Everyone said so. Wen the Tracker.” June spit at the ground. “Such a great man.”

Zuko didn’t know what to say. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s been dead for ten years,” June said, as if it meant nothing to her. “You wouldn’t have liked him.”

“Oh,” Zuko said. He thought about apologizing, but he didn’t think there was much of a point. It seemed meaningless. A lot of things seemed meaningless, these days. “Okay.”

They contemplated the fire. The clicks and whirs of the forest hummed quietly around them. “My mother died when I was eleven,” Zuko told her, and he wasn’t sure why he’d decided to say it, only that the words were already out of his mouth. 

June clapped him on the shoulder, but gently, this time. She left her hand there and squeezed. Neither of them said a thing. Zuko didn’t know what to do. June had never been like this before. 

“You’ll get the old man back,” June said. She squeezed his shoulder one last time, then let go and went back to leaning her elbows on her knees. “You’re good. You might even be better than me, but don’t you _dare_ repeat that to my face or you’re getting gutted. If anyone can take on the North Pole, it’s you. But I can’t—” June stopped herself and frowned. When she spoke, it sounded more like she was talking to herself, rather than Zuko. “The old man told me to take care of you. He had about twenty seconds and he wasted a fourth of it telling me to take care of you.” She shook her head. 

“Don’t bother,” Zuko said. “I can take care of myself.”

June gave him a wry smile. He wondered if she believed him. “Start by getting some sleep.” She pushed herself to her feet and stretched. “Tomorrow, the hunt is on.”

Zuko nodded. He slid his dao back into its sheath. “The hunt is on.”

* * *

— 

* * *

Sometimes Sokka wondered if had woken up from his coma into the right world. A world something like the one that he used to be in, where he, his little sister and the Avatar flew from island to island, dodging that crazy jerkbender Zhao, but where everything was slightly to the left. He’d been trapped in the spirit world before, after all, though he didn’t remember it much. It wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility. 

He shook his head. Who was he trying to kid? A week spent with Bato, a week spent ferrying back injured men and women to the Abbey, and he’d started thinking that there was nothing else in the world but burn wounds and dead bodies. He needed to snap out of it. 

They needed to find Aang and take him to the North Pole. They needed to help him master all four elements before the end of the summer. Or so Roku had said. It was all very mystical, wasn’t it? Get a twelve-year-old to learn how to turn water into ice and suddenly a whole nation will stop massacring people’s mothers? 

Sokka was thinking too much. 

Bato spread the messenger’s map out on a table in his beautifully comfortable room in the Abbey. Sokka took one look at it and knew that hope was a trap. It snared you around the throat and choked you until you died. Circled was a northern Earth Kingdom bay, right over the capital of Ba Sing Se. It was too far west. It was too far north. His father was beyond Sokka’s reach, and it seemed like he always would be. 

“Yimu,” Bato said, pointing to the name of the bay written on the map. 

“Yimu,” Sokka repeated. 

They looked at each other. Sokka couldn’t help but smile. He saw that Bato couldn’t stop himself either. They were strained smiles. They were smiles that understood how Bato needed to go somewhere where Sokka could not follow. They were smiles that understood duty. They were smiles that understood pain. 

“I thought he might be closer,” Bato said. “But we mustn't get too far from the Eastern Sea. Even this far is a risk.”

Sokka leaned his hands on the table. He stared down at the map as if it held his father’s secrets. “What were you guys doing near the Abbey?”

“It was months ago. We were doing a sweep up the west. The seas are calmer on the west, especially near the colonies. Or so we thought.” Bato nodded toward his own bandages wryly. “After destroying a supply cache, the warriors needed to return to the front. They couldn’t afford to wait on one man. And well they shouldn’t.”

Sokka stroked his chin. “Yeah,” he said, hardly aware of the words tumbling out of his mouth. “I guess so.”

“I’ll be setting out tomorrow.” Sokka stared at Bato’s retreating back as the man walked away from the table. The warrior started pulling pelts off the walls. “Going to sail up and around the north coast. Should take about three weeks.” 

“Ah,” Sokka said. He stared blankly at a wall where a pelt had once been. 

“And you?” Bato asked, dropping the pelts into a pile. 

Sokka felt hollow and he didn’t know why. He shook his head to try to dislodge the feeling. “As soon as I can drag Katara away from the infirmary.”

“She’s really something, isn’t she, your sister?” Bato laughed.

“Yeah,” Sokka said, wishing that she didn’t have to be, wishing that the world hadn’t made his little sister into a warrior. “She really is.” 

When Bato left the next day, Sokka and Katara hugged him on the shore next to his ship. Bato promised to tell Dad everything. Katara’s smile was strained. Usually, she was much better at faking it. 

They waved goodbye. 

* * *

—

* * *

The sun rose that day with a feverish heat, especially for the time of year. It was a day for accomplishment. It was a day for success. Failure was never an option. Not for Zuko. 

“Let’s start by not being idiots,” Zuko began. The dawning sun framed the back of his straw conical hat. His arms were crossed, and in front of him stood June and the Avatar, lined up, one tall, dark-shrouded knife of a woman, and one short, brightly-clad skinny pole of an airbender. Both of them were barely awake. 

“You’ve already failed,” June yawned, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. 

“I’m going to stab you,” Zuko growled.

“I’m going back to sleep,” the Avatar announced, followed quickly by him jumping and planting flat on his back. 

“No!” Zuko snapped, walking over and kicking him in the side. The Avatar whined. 

June yawned again. 

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay,” he sighed. “How about we start by being _less_ stupid?”

June smirked. “_Now_ you’re talking.”

* * *

—

* * *

“We have to be smart about this,” Sokka told his sister in the Abbey’s infirmary. There was a total of twelve people in it, and Sokka knew all their names by heart, because he was the one who’d pulled them out of the rubble. 

Katara was checking on Jeon, the eight-year-old who will never walk again. “I think you say that every time, but for some strange reason I’ve never seen it actually happen.”

“Ha ha,” Sokka mocked, leaning against the wall. “You’re so funny, Katara. Tell me another one.”

“That’s too easy.”

“You were going to say—,” Sokka struck a pose, the back of his hand to his forehead as if he were overcome by a fainting spell, “_‘Why, you, Sokka, my dearest and most devastatingly handsome brother_,’—” his voice turned deadpan, “—weren’t you?”

“That’s why I said it was too easy.”

Sokka rolled his eyes. “Thanks for holding it back. I know it was a trial.”

Katara smiled down at Jeon, flicking her water back into her water skin. “It was tough, but I held out because I’m such a good person.”

“Uh-huh,” Sokka drawled. “Thank the Moon for your endless grace and purity.”

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko punched his right fist into his left palm. “The idiot’s move would be to search every town for a couple of Water Tribe teens. Yeah, you don’t see much of the Water Tribe around the colonies, and we might stumble upon something, _eventually, _but it’s mostly a huge waste of time and energy.”

The Avatar looked up at Zuko from the ground and scratched the back of his bald head. “Okay— but then what are we supposed to do?”

“The best hunter,” June said, cutting in, “stays put.”

“They’re looking for you, Avatar,” Zuko said. “If they know where you are, they’ll come running. We don’t have to do a thing.”

* * *

—

* * *

“Zuko doesn’t want us to find him,” Sokka said, thinking aloud, following Katara as she moved to check on Ho Myung. “We’re at every disadvantage. He’ll realize if we start looking for him, because people are going to notice Appa. The big furball will give us away before we even get close. We can’t go around asking people, either, because Zuko and Aang by themselves don’t particularly stand out, especially if Zuko throws a disguise on Aang, which I wouldn’t put past him.”

Katara frowned grimly. 

Something suddenly occurred to Sokka and he brought his hand up to his chin. “But we don’t have to worry about where Zuko is. We just have to worry about where _Aang_ is.”

Ho Myung was a matronly woman in her forties with burns all along her right side. She greeted Katara kindly, and Katara greeted her kindly back. Katara sheathed her hands in her water, and as she touched the twisted flesh of Ho Myung’s side, the water glowed blue. 

After five minutes, Katara finally said, after wiping away the sweat from her brow, “Do you have something that makes sense or—?”

Sokka jumped on the opportunity to keep talking about their Aang-shaped problem. “I’m saying that _Aang _wants to find us. He’s a very powerful bender, Katara, we’ve seen him do some crazy stuff. He might have already escaped, or if he hasn’t, it’s probably because he doesn’t know where _we_ are.”

Katara looked up at him doubtfully. “Are you saying that your plan to free Aang is to wait for Aang to free himself?”

Sokka grimaced. He swayed his head from side to side, weighing the options, and eventually admitted, “It sounded better in my head.”

* * *

—

* * *

“We’re in the middle of the Fire Nation colonies,” June deadpanned, her brow raised, “and you want the Avatar to parade himself into a city and take a shit on the governor’s doorstep.”

The Avatar curiously rolled his head to see Zuko’s reaction to this proposal. 

“Well,” Zuko hedged. “I didn’t say anything about shitting.”

“_Think_ about what you’re saying, brat,” June yelled. “This boy,” she scuffed her boot at the Avatar, “is the most wanted man in the entire world. You just broke him out of prison, didn’t you? Now you want to bring the heat right back on him!”

The Avatar nodded, “I mean, she has a point.”

“Of course I have a point,” June huffed. “I’m smarter than both of you children combined.”

“We’ve got to use what we have,” Zuko growled. “We have the Avatar. We should use him.”

“You know the Avatar has a name, right?” the Avatar grumbled. 

“Shut up,” June and Zuko said simultaneously, without even looking at him. 

The Avatar haughtily raised his head. “See if I help any of you,” he sniffed. 

“You’re going to help us because you don’t have a choice,” Zuko growled. “We’re on a deadline, here, in case you’ve _forgotten_.”

The Avatar thunked his head back onto the ground.

“Now here’s what we’re going to do,” Zuko said. 

* * *

— 

* * *

“We’re going to have to make a scene,” Sokka said. “A scene big enough that rumors will spread all throughout the area, and _fast. _And nothing spreads rumors faster than rumors of the Avatar.”

Katara idly wiped her hands on a spare bit of cloth. “So Aang hears these rumors of the Avatar, realizes that they can’t be him—”

“And that they must be Appa and us!” Sokka finished. 

Sokka watched Katara’s mouth twist into a tiny frown, and he knew she wasn’t as on board with the idea as he was. Not that he ever expected her to agree with him. She stared off across the infirmary, watching as Sister Hon rolled in with a cart of medical supplies, and eventually admitted, “It can’t hurt. But it’s still not an actual plan.”

Sokka shrugged helplessly. “We’re focusing on Step One, right now. Gather information. I’ve got a hunch that Aang might be able to free himself— but in case he can’t, we’ll still ask around the slow way, too. There’s nothing else we can do.”

* * *

—

* * *

“So here’s my idea,” the Avatar began as soon as the boy had floated to his feet and dusted off his robes. Zuko forced himself to listen to it. “Stop giving me that look!” The Avatar swatted at Zuko’s face. 

Zuko dodged out of the way of the airbender’s flailing hand. “What look?”

“You look like you’re being forced to eat dirt. It’s a good idea!”

“I’m… sure it is,” Zuko said, with a feeling like he was gargling shards of glass. 

The Avatar glared at him before puffing out his chest and declaring, “We’ll stage a scene! I will be the hero. You,” he pointed at Zuko, “will be the villain, and June will be the maiden in distress.”

Zuko looked over at June, the black-clad woman with a skull topknot and enough scars marring her arms to make her look like she’d gotten on the wrong side of a knife tornado-spirit. “Are you… sure?”

“I feel like this plan is going to lose me money,” June said. “I don’t know how, but it will.”

“Why can’t you just go attack the governor?” Zuko sighed. “Go beat up some babies or something.”

“I’m the Avatar!” the Avatar exclaimed. “I can’t beat up babies!”

“What if they were Fire Nation babies?” Zuko asked, not because he thought the Avatar would particularly agree to it, but because he wanted to see the Avatar’s reaction.

“_You’re _from the Fire Nation!” the Avatar screeched, running his hands over his arrow, like he couldn’t believe he was forced to answer that. 

Zuko wasn’t sure what the Avatar was trying to say. “And I am a… baby?”

The Avatar yelled into his hands. 

June clapped Zuko on the shoulder and dove for his good cheek and started to pinch it. “Yes, you are, my little idiot apprentice.”

Zuko shoved her off and drew his swords. “The only thing that never ceases to surprise me is how you’re still alive, you gold-grubbing hag.”

“I’m so scared,” June mocked. “Whatever shall I do.”

“Guys,” the Avatar said, peaceably holding out his hands. “I guess this is good practice, but we have to do the scene in front of an audience. You know, in a city. Wait, stop, we’re not actually fighting— Guys, stop—! What are you guys _doing?_ Hey—!”

* * *

—

* * *

Sokka held out the orange robes in front of Katara and shook them so that they wiggled in the air. He smiled expectantly. 

“This is dumb,” Katara said. 

“Hey, you know what was dumb?” Sokka said, shoving the robes into Katara’s arms. “Pretending to be an earthbender and getting arrested was dumb. _This_ is genius.”

“Just because it’s _your_ dumb idea doesn’t mean it’s genius,” she huffed, but she took the clothing. It really looked nothing like Aang’s. But it was the right color. Sokka supposed that was all that mattered. “And we might still get arrested.”

“Pah,” Sokka said, waving his hand. “What else is new.”

Katara pouted down at the robes. “Why do _I _have to be Aang? You’re the guy. You be Aang.” 

Sokka jabbed his finger into Katara’s forehead. “You’re the bender. And you’re shorter.” 

Katara knocked his hand away. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Sokka said, folding his arms. 

“But we’re never telling Aang about this.”

“Agreed.”

* * *

—

* * *

“I can’t wait to tell Sokka and Katara about this. They’ll think it’s hilarious,” the Avatar whispered to Zuko as they both crouched in a dark alleyway in Edano. 

Zuko watched the patrolling soldiers pass into their barracks. This station’s numbers could be anywhere from 100 to 700. Zuko’s numbers ranged from 1 to 3. Or did the Avatar count as 4 people? 

Zuko glanced over at the airbender and saw him try to surreptitiously pick his nose. 

Not this Avatar, Zuko decided. This Avatar counted as a half. 

“When this blows up in our faces, I doubt you’ll still be thinking that,” Zuko whispered back. 

The Avatar wiped his booger on the ground. “Why do you always expect things to go wrong?”

“Because they always do,” Zuko growled. “I’m done here.” He pushed himself to his feet and dragged himself and the Avatar deeper into the shadows. “Let’s move.” 

* * *

—

* * *

Katara had her hair pinned up under a white piece of cloth that the nuns had given her, and with the sweeping orange tresses draped over her form, at least she didn’t scream Water Tribe. 

They landed Appa in Chunso, the largest and nearest town, along the Su-Jong River. More specifically, they landed, with some difficulty, in the town square. A merchant selling large green melons laid out on a blanket quickly rolled up his wares and dragged them off to the side. Another merchant with a cart with one broken wheel haphazardly screwed into place struggled to drag it away, and when Appa landed in the convenient circle that the townspeople had made when they ran away in fear, the great sweep of the bison’s tail upturned the cart entirely, spilling his cabbages out onto the dirty street. 

In the great deal of shouting and hubbub that accompanied Appa landing in the busiest square in the entire town, Sokka and Katara couldn’t pick out that particular merchant’s cry, but even if they had, they were too busy shouting themselves. 

Katara stood up on Appa’s head, brandishing Aang’s staff, and assumed a martial-looking pose, both knees bent, staff over her head. Momo did his own part in the act, perched majestically on Katara’s shoulder.

“People of Chunso!” Katara declared in her deepest baritone, which wasn’t very deep at all. 

Damn, his sister really went all out with these things. 

“I am the Avatar!” Katara swung Aang’s staff in a lazy arc. 

“It’s the Avatar!” Sokka shouted, hands cupped around his mouth, looking out at the ring of villagers staring at them bewilderedly.

“I am here to liberate you from the Fire Nation’s rule!” Katara announced. She swung the staff and assumed another pose. 

“He’s here to liberate you!” Sokka yelled. 

A quick glance at the blankness of people’s eyes, the way that a few of them scratched their heads, some of them murmuring to their friends, and Sokka could tell that they weren’t getting through. 

“Do some bending,” Sokka hissed under his breath. 

Katara obligingly placed her hand on her water skin, drawing out a flashy wave that splashed out into the crowd in a fine mist, like the feeling of standing too close to a waterfall. 

More than anyone else, the mist drenched a heavy-set man with square-sideburns, standing at the front of the crowd. The water turned his square sideburns into flat sideburns. The drenched man shook out his hands, then brushed off his clothes, making a miserable attempt to remove the excess water from his tunic. 

“What’d I ever do to you?” the man moaned. 

Katara cringed so hard that she flinched backwards, losing her footing on Appa’s head. Momo chirped and grabbed Aang’s staff before it got flung into the crowd, but the lemur paid no mind to Katara, who tumbled flat onto the cobblestone of the town square. 

Sokka covered his face with his hands, so he didn’t get to see how the crowd reacted, and he thought it was better that way. He got to hear it, though— and it started off with silence. 

Then came the jeering. 

“Avatar— _yeah right!”_

“That lemur’s more likely to be the Avatar!”

“Get these people outta here!”

“Someone call the guard!”

“You’re blocking the square!”

“Get lost!”

“Bunch o’ posers!”

Sokka felt a small rock hit the back of his head. 

* * *

—

* * *

The busiest intersection in Edano was a 3-way convergence of streets right in front of a small garden, which a lot of teens used as a place to meet with their friends and throw rocks at passerby, a lot of adults used as a place to walk romantically with their dates, and a lot of older people used as a place to play pick-up games of Pai Sho. None of that was why Zuko picked it. 

“It’ll take the army five minutes to reach this location,” Zuko had told June and the Avatar. “Make those five minutes count.” 

The Avatar had tried to get them all to participate in a chant— “Team Avatar Two, go!” — but Zuko and June’s cold and deadly looks had put an end to that. The three of them split up. 

Now, Zuko watched June stroll through the garden. He rested his hand on the hilts of his dao. He sighed, briefly closing his eyes, before he opened them again. 

He stepped out into the street, his gait light and sure. 

He stopped right in front of June. June stopped, too, of course, and there was a moment where they both stared at each other. 

Zuko realized that he didn’t know what to say. He really should have practiced this beforehand. He pulled out his swords. Good. That was a good start. He pointed one at June. “You—” he didn’t think that was aggressive enough. “_You—” _he tried again. _ “You’re—” _he thought he was better at insulting people than this. Why had his mind gone blank? “You’re ugly,” Zuko finally managed. 

June’s mouth opened into a little O. “Ugly?” she said, taken aback.

“Give me your money,” Zuko said lamely. He haphazardly waved his sword. “Now.” 

June tilted her head, crossed her arms, and said, “No. I don’t think I will.”

“Well,” Zuko said, without much conviction. “I guess I’ll just have to take it.”

“I guess you will,” June said. 

They stared at each other. 

“I’m going to steal from you now,” Zuko said. 

“Okay,” June said. “You can try.”

Zuko shuffled a step closer to her. 

June let out a little huff, and Zuko was quite unprepared for the moment that she _moved. _She lunged forward, knocking Zuko’s weakly pointed sword to the side and exposing his torso. A quick hit into his gut with her elbow and Zuko hunched over, his breath shoved out of his body, and then she grabbed the back of his head and rammed his nose into her kneecap. Zuko collapsed to his knees, blood dribbling down his face. 

That was the scene that the Avatar flew in on. 

“Never fear!” the Avatar exclaimed, and he had quite the booming voice. Unlike June and Zuko’s minor commotion, the Avatar drew the garden’s full attention, like the sound of a gong announcing dinner. “I am the Avatar!” 

The Avatar didn’t wait for anything as he jumped upward and bended a ball of air underneath him, landing on it and riding it like it was some kind of mount, right up the path to June and Zuko. “I will stop his heinous man from attacking this innocent—” the Avatar’s voice trailed off, “—woman.” 

To the Avatar’s credit, he was pretty quick on the uptake. 

“Leave that guy alone, evil lady!” the Avatar said, jumping off his ball of air. 

A deeply wrinkled old woman squinted over at the Avatar. “I think that young man was going to _attack _that nice woman, little boy,” she warbled. 

“Uh, no,” the Avatar said, eyes nervously flicking around the crowd forming around him. “Obviously, that can’t be true. See, she’s just assaulted him for no reason.”

Zuko wiped away some of the blood dripping down his nose. 

“It’s true,” June said, but her voice was so devoid of emotion that it sounded faker than a paper mache sun. 

The Avatar jumped on it anyways. “She admits it!” The boy rolled back on his heels, arms flowing around him, and kicked out a stream of air right at June, tossing her from her feet and tumbling down the path. Zuko ducked down to dodge the edge of the blast. He looked over at June, splayed placidly on the ground. 

The Avatar smiled widely at his supposed heroism, perching his hands on his hips. He waited for some kind of response— maybe shouts of adoration or gratitude. Zuko wasn’t sure. 

There was a shout, but it wasn’t anything he expected. 

“The Avatar just killed that woman!” the wrinkled old woman screeched, covering her mouth with her hands. 

The Avatar spun around, eyes wide. But it was too late. June was lying still on the ground. The crowd had seen the Avatar attack her. Nobody had been paying attention to when June had attacked Zuko. 

Everything in Zuko’s mind screamed at him to bail. 

* * *

—

* * *

Someone had called the guard. Of course they had, Sokka thought to himself. Of course someone would call the flipping guard.

A troop of ten Fire Nation soldiers brusquely fought their way into the clearing. At least Katara was back in the saddle. 

“All right,” Sokka said breathlessly, “Time to bail.”

The captain of the troop didn’t seem to like that idea. “Spread out!” came the guard’s voice, and it surprised Sokka to hear something that wasn’t the scratchy baritone of most Fire Nation soldiers. The captain’s faceplate was on, but a distracted part of Sokka’s mind noted that this captain was a woman. “Surround the beast! We can’t let the Avatar escape!”

“Sokka,” Katara whispered, “I think it worked.”

Sokka wanted to scream. “Did it? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Spear the beast’s limbs to the ground!” came the captain’s voice, and Appa abruptly lurched underneath them.

“Appa!” Katara and Sokka both yelled, stumbling over the side to see what the soldiers were doing. 

Their spears were raised, but for many of them, their spears never came down. Appa struck his tail against the ground, and a wave of air thundered across the town square, blowing the guards back into the civilians and merchants crowded around them. 

It spared them a whole second. “Appa, yip yip!” Sokka yelled, without even being at the reins, but Appa didn’t want to be there any more than they did, and the sky bison soon lifted into the wind.

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko hadn’t accounted for a single soldier, spending an early lunch break with his fiancée. Zuko wasn’t sure why he hadn’t noticed him earlier, but maybe it was because he was lounging on a blanket, wearing light armor. Innocuous. Unthreatening. 

Now he was marching toward the Avatar and ordering him to surrender. A full contingent of soldiers could be here in an instant, that soldier declared. Surrender now, the soldier declared. 

Annoying, Zuko thought, pushing himself to his feet. 

The wrinkled elderly woman had begun to sob. “A murderer!” she choked out, pointing at the Avatar. “Arrest him, officer! Please!”

“Whoa, whoa,” the Avatar said. Zuko could see him start to sweat. “She’s fine! She’s not dead, I just pushed her a little— June!” The Avatar looked over at June. “June, say that you’re fine!”

Zuko also looked over at June. She wasn’t moving. That hag. He walked over to her side and knelt. He poked her forehead. June wrinkled her nose. 

“I blame you,” Zuko told her. 

She peeked open one eye and smirked. 

More shouting brought Zuko’s attention back toward the Avatar, who was now surrounded by the lone soldier and four other strong-looking men— farmer’s sons, merchants, an elderly fisherman. 

“Get up and stop making this worse,” Zuko said. 

“It’s called making it believable, brat,” she said. “For Guanyin’s sake, Lee. _You’re ugly?” _She made a face. 

Zuko scowled at the ground. “Shut up.”

“_You _should shut up. Oma and Shu, I should’ve known putting you in a social situation was a mistake.”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “We need to leave.”

“Yeah,” she snapped. “No shit.”

“Then get up and help me go save the Avatar.” Zuko gestured to the spot where the Avatar should be, only neither of them could see the boy anymore, because the crowd had grown like a barnacle. “I’m _paying _you, remember?”

“Why do you think I’m here?” she said, and finally pushed herself up to a seat. “Though, if you want to get technical—”

“We’re not getting technical,” Zuko said quickly. You never wanted to get technical with June. 

“Fine,” she pouted. “Later.”

Both of them stood up. Like it was routine, June cracked her neck. Zuko stretched out his arms, swords still loosely held in his hands. They were warming up. They met each other’s eyes and nodded. 

They turned toward the crowd.

* * *

—

* * *

The ride back to the Abbey on Appa was heavy with things they didn’t want to say. Like how terribly they’d messed up, for one. Appa had a spear stuck in his right middle paw, and it tore Sokka up inside. He didn’t even think he and Appa got along all that well. He couldn’t imagine what Aang would say. He and Katara gently patted Appa’s sides. 

Appa was a lot stronger than Sokka, that was for sure. The bison didn’t complain once. 

Sokka cleared his throat. “That— could have gone— better. Maybe. A little bit.”

His back was to Katara, so he couldn’t see her, but her voice was tired when she said, “We’re not going to talk about it.”

Sokka nodded, staring off into the clouds between Appa’s horns. “Not gonna talk about it.”

* * *

—

* * *

The Avatar looked frazzled, bruised, and dirt-stained, but they weren’t in Edano anymore, and none of them had been arrested for longer than a minute, which must have been some Agni-gifted miracle. 

“You know,” the Avatar said, panting, leaning against a tree in the outer ring of forest surrounding Edano. “That could have gone better.”

Zuko leaned his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “_Really?_” he coughed out. “You _think_ so?”

June was the least winded of all of them. Another testament to Zuko’s theory that she was some kind of monster. And Zuko turned into a dragon sometimes. She brushed her hair behind her ear. “And it’s all thanks to me.”

“They thought I killed you!” the Avatar snapped. 

She scoffed. “So ungrateful.”

“Let’s just go get your stinking beast,” Zuko said, coming back to his feet. “We’re not talking about this again.”

“Children,” June sniffed. “So useless.”

Zuko punched her in the shoulder. “That’s for the frosted knee to the face, you piece of money-grubbing trash.”

June rubbed her arm. “Why couldn’t you curse at me like that in front of an audience?”

“Shut up!”

“Lee,” she gasped, “Is it because you’re _shy_?”

Instead of starting another fight, or burning the forest to the ground, or screaming, Zuko marched off. For the moment, he couldn’t care less if June and the Avatar were bleeding out right behind him. He wasn’t going to turn around.

* * *

—

* * *

The next day dawned cold and dreary, heavy with oncoming rain. 

“We’re moving onto Phase Two,” Sokka told Katara as they stood in front of a tavern called the Spirit’s Tongue. The sign had a picture of a severed tongue on it. Absolutely gruesome. “I promise you that Phase Two is easier.”

Katara massaged her temple. “I thought we were calling them Steps.”

“We are,” Sokka said. “We’re still in Step One.”

“Ah-huh? And how many Steps are there?”

Sokka pushed his sister in through the tavern door. “As many as it takes to find Aang.”

Like many taverns, the Spirit’s Tongue was ill-lit, overly warm, and overly packed. They pushed past a server and made their way to the bar. Sokka tried to walk with confidence. He was a man. He drank rice wine and baijiu with the best of them. 

He and his sister reached the bar and took a seat. As casually as he could manage, Sokka looked up at the bartender. And kept looking up. And up. The bartender of the Spirit’s Tongue was an impossibly tall man, with muscles that could barely be contained in his robes, and hair as white as snow. 

Sokka pressed his lips together. “Hey there,” he said. He started to wave and aborted the movement halfway through, sliding his hand back to his side. 

The bartender loomed down at him. “You’re young.”

Sokka tried not to slink back in his seat. “Young in spirit, you mean,” he said, trying to keep his voice from cracking. “Heh heh.”

“Wait here,” said the bartender. When the man walked away, his footsteps lumbered like a giants’. 

Sokka looked over at Katara. She sat politely in her seat, hands in her lap. “Don’t ask me,” she said. 

“I wasn’t going to.” Sokka straightened his back. 

The bartender returned with a shot glass, which he slid across the bar toward Sokka. He grabbed it before it fell onto the floor. “Here,” said the bartender, wiping his enormous hands on a stray piece cloth. “On the house, kiddo.”

“Great,” Sokka said, staring down into the mysteriously clear depths of his shot glass. “Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “We actually just wanted to ask you some questions.”

The bartender raised a pure white eyebrow. 

“Um, about the Avatar,” Sokka said. “We’re— uh. Fans.”

“Fans,” said the bartender. The man never seemed to alter his expression. 

“Yeah,” Sokka said, gesturing vaguely. “We just like to keep track of his appearances and all. We’re— writing a play. About the Avatar. We’re actors.”

Katara kicked him in the shin. 

"Actors,” the bartender said. 

Sokka swept open his arms. “We’re calling it The Avatar’s Adventures with the Southern Water Tribe. Featuring the Southern Water Tribe.”

Katara kicked him in the shin again. 

Sokka glared at her. 

“I’m sorry about my brother,” Katara said to the bartender, who did little else than turn his big head to look at her instead. “We don’t mean to throw all this information about our — _play_ — at you like this. If you’ve heard any rumors about where the Avatar might be, we’d be very grateful.”

At first, the bartender didn’t say anything. Someone called for a refill farther along the bar, and the bartender turned in that direction, but he didn’t move just yet. “More rumors about the Avatar than usual,” the bartender finally said. “Heard he was in Edano about six or seven days ago. Now I’m hearing he’s right here in Chunso.” The bartender picked up a bottle along the rack behind him. “If you’re looking for him, you’re in the right place.”

* * *

—

* * *

The Avatar kicked his legs as he sat in the booth in the corner of another dingy, unnamed bar. Funny thing about this part of Edano. There were so many bars that most people just called them by their bartenders. They were in Yuhan’s. 

“All you guys do is sit around and get drunk,” the Avatar complained, drawing a line on the wooden table with his finger. 

“No,” Zuko said, wrinkling his nose and glaring at the people sitting one booth down from them. They were speaking too loudly. “That’s just June.”

June wasn’t sitting with them, of course. She was over at the bar itself. 

“It’s been a day,” the Avatar said. His hood was very firmly covering his head. “You’d think they’d show up by now.”

“That’s not how this works,” Zuko said. 

“That’s all you guys ever _say_,” the Avatar lamented. “_The world doesn’t work like that, Avatar. Bounty hunting doesn’t work like that, Avatar.” _He groaned, collapsing his head in his arms. 

“We’re not saving some _city,_” Zuko spat. “We’re looking for two people in a country of hundreds of thousands. What did you _think _was going to happen?”

“I don’t know!” the Avatar exclaimed. “That we’d miraculously walk into the same bar at the same time, I guess!”

Zuko gestured around at their small, dingy bar. “You see them?”

“No,” the Avatar said miserably into the table. 

Zuko nodded to himself and settled back in his seat. He watched a man walk into the bar with two concealed knives at his back. 

“It’s just,” the Avatar began. “I don’t know how much time we have left. Before, you know. I don’t think we can afford to wait weeks.”

“If they’re not here in a week, they won’t be here.” 

“You think so?” the Avatar asked. 

“Yes. They’d be dead.”

The Avatar shot back in his seat. _“Dead?”_

“You know.” Zuko tapped his claws against the table. “Killed. Dismembered.”

The Avatar clutched at his head. “_Dismembered?_”

Zuko shrugged. He wasn’t really paying attention. He was watching the man with the concealed knives. Zuko thought that the man looked familiar. A knife scar all the way down the left side of his face. Lanky, bony. 50 silver. Or was it 75. 

“Are you even listening to me?” the Avatar pouted. 

“That man,” Zuko pointed with his chin, “is wanted.”

The Avatar very obviously and obtrusively turned his entire body to look at the man. “Him?” The Avatar pointed. 

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. He shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. Agni, why had he said something?

Obviously, the wanted man noticed the boy pointing at him. He turned around in his seat. “You want something, kid?”

“Uh, I thought you looked like this guy I knew who could juggle plates,” the Avatar said. “He used to be able to go all the way up to 10. Crazy stuff.”

“Piss off,” the wanted man spat. “Go stuff your head in a pile of mud.”

When the wanted man finally returned to his drink, the Avatar let out a sigh, his shoulders sinking like rocks. “What’s—” the Avatar was whispering now, which showed an astounding amount of forethought for his stupid Avatar brain, “—what’s he wanted for?”

Zuko tapped his nails against the table again. “Forget about it.”

“But I’m bored, Zuko,” the Avatar said, reaching out and placing his hands on top of Zuko’s like that was a normal thing for him to do. Zuko felt himself freeze, every single muscle in his body tensing at once. The Avatar quickly pulled his hands away. 

Zuko nervously pulled his hands in his sleeves and folded his arms. 

“Let’s go do something,” the Avatar continued. “June’s doing all the info gathering, right? We’re just sitting around.”

Zuko grunted noncommittally. 

The Avatar bit his lip and screwed up his eyes. His expression cleared when the idea hit him. “Let’s do something fun that you want to do,” he said. He counted on his fingers. “Like fighting. Or yelling. Or being mean. Or not answering questions.”

“‘Cause they’re dumb questions.”

“You’re a dumb question,” the Avatar said. 

“So we’ve chosen the mean option.”

The Avatar smiled slyly. “Guess that means you’ve agreed that we should go do something.”

Zuko winced. 

“C’mon,” the Avatar said, standing up. He reached out, as if to grab Zuko’s arm, but stopped halfway, as if he decided against it. “Let’s go see if there’s anyone around that we can bully.”

Zuko stubbornly remained in his seat. 

The Avatar bounced on his heels. “C’mooon.”

Zuko looked around the bar and noticed that people were looking at them, now, more than they had before. He stood up. 

Outside the bar, where the sun beat down its steady, unwavering gaze, the Avatar told him, “I just got an idea.”

“You want to beat up some babies?”

“No!” the Avatar pouted. “Enough about the babies!”

Zuko rolled his eyes. 

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” the Avatar said. 

“What a surprise.”

“I’ve been _thinking_,” the Avatar continued forcefully, “that there’s an opportunity here that we’re missing out on. You’re a— ” the Avatar lowered his voice, “ — you’re a firebender.”

Zuko felt suddenly ill at ease, like there were eyes staring daggers at his back from the shadows. “Don’t tell June.”

“I wasn’t going to!” the Avatar said, holding up his hands peacefully. “I know you’ve got this whole secret identity thing going on. As much as I don’t get it, I don’t actually want to make you hate me. As much as it may surprise you.”

Zuko said nothing.

“So,” the Avatar sighed, looking up at him with wide, hopeful eyes. “You think you can give me some tips?” 

Some violent monster inside Zuko’s mind writhed. “No.”

The Avatar blinked at him. “Please?”

Zuko looked away. He stared at the uneven brick of the building across the street. He tried to think about the situation logically. The most powerful being in the world was asking him to teach him firebending. An irresponsible 12-year-old who’d never touched a flame was asking him to teach him firebending. 

Zuko wished his uncle was here. Agni, his uncle would know what to do. 

“You ever,” Zuko started, haltingly, “make smoke? Spit sparks?”

The Avatar blinked again, bouncing excitedly on his feet. “No? Should I? How do you do it? Is that something firebenders do? Is that something you do?”

Zuko grimaced. Yes, it was something that he did. “It’s something six year olds do.”

“Oh.” The Avatar cocked his head. “I’m not six.”

Zuko shook his head. “I’m done with this. I’m going back inside.” 

“Wait!” 

Zuko grudgingly looked back at him. He didn’t like the look on the Avatar’s face. 

“So if I did those things, you’d teach me some stuff?”

Zuko didn’t want to say yes, but he would have no other choice. If he didn’t teach the Avatar some firebending, at that point, the boy would probably set himself or some other stranger on fire. “I guess,” he sighed, and it felt painful, like a bug crawling out of his throat. “I’m not a good person to ask about this kind of stuff, Aang. I’m not a good firebender.”

The Avatar looked shocked. “Not a good firebender? _You?_”

Zuko shuffled on his feet. “I’m leaving.”

This time, the Avatar caught his arm. Zuko quickly shook him off. 

“I don’t know your story,” the Avatar said. “I know that. I didn’t know this was such a touchy subject, and I’m sorry for bringing it up. But I had to. The Fire Nation is coming for the North Pole, and everybody will be looking to me when that time comes. If there’s anything I could do to be more prepared for that, then—” the Avatar shrugged. 

Zuko felt off-balance, like a single gust of wind could knock him over. 

“I’m not on your side, you know,” Zuko said. “I’m not going to fight against the fleet. I’m not going to fight with you.”

“That’s okay,” the Avatar said, oddly at peace. “I’d never ask anyone to fight with me. I’d never ask anyone to fight at all.”

A familiar spark of rage clawed at Zuko’s throat. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The Avatar’s brows knit together. “Nobody should have to fight anyone, is all. For any reason.”

Then let yourself lay down and die? Zuko thought. Let your enemies crush your bones into the dirt? Let them gloat over your corpse and piss into your gaping wounds? Let them run free after murdering mothers, killing firstborns, slaughtering sisters?

“The man was wanted for murdering his wife,” Zuko said. “I’m going to go hunt him down. Go do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

Zuko stepped back into the bar, and the Avatar didn’t stop him. 

* * *

—

* * *

The next day, there was still no sign of the Water Tribe siblings. The Avatar said that he wanted to make posters. Zuko and June stood by as the Avatar made posters. 

“Now we can ask if anyone has seen them!” the Avatar said brightly, holding up a scroll covered in three haphazard strokes of blue pigment. 

“I’ll take these,” June said, graciously taking the two posters from the Avatar’s hands. “Thank you for your hard work.”

The Avatar beamed. Zuko raised his eyebrow. Yeah, right. Hard work. Sure. 

“Now you and Lee go play in the woods.” June made a shooing motion. “Be back before supper.”

Zuko heaved a put-upon sigh. So that was her play. 

“Aw,” the Avatar said. “Do we have to be back before supper?”

“Of course, dear,” June said, and Zuko could now detect the sarcastic lilt to her lip. “Who else will tend to the chicken-sheep?”

“I hope you pass out and die in a ditch,” Zuko said. 

June slapped his hat with the rolled up scroll. “Bad child!”

“Go drink away your mistakes, hag.”

“You’re all a bunch of ungrateful shits,” June sniffed. 

* * *

— 

* * *

The next day, there was still no sign of the Water Tribe siblings. The Avatar couldn’t seem to sit still, not even during the night. He punched a tree deep into the evening, and Zuko found him passed out in front of a tree stump. 

Zuko left him there. 

* * *

—

* * *

The next day, there was still no sign of the Water Tribe siblings. Zuko stole away during the day to train. The Avatar probably thought that he was stealthy when he decided to follow behind, hoping to catch a glimpse of Zuko firebending. Zuko could have easily shaken him, but he didn’t bother. 

He trained with swords instead. 

It took two hours for the Avatar to finally reveal himself. 

“Don’t attack,” the Avatar said, emerging into the clearing with his hands up. “It’s just me.”

Zuko lowered his swords to his sides. 

When Zuko didn’t say anything, the Avatar continued, “I, uh, just happened to come across you on my daily walk.”

Zuko turned his back to him. 

The Avatar walked around so that Zuko had to continue looking at him. “Weird, huh?” The Avatar laughed nervously. 

Uncle would have said something about life’s many mysteries. Zuko wasn’t his uncle. “Go away,” he said. 

It was like the Avatar hadn’t heard him at all. “So, about the other day.” His smile looked hopeful. “I was wondering if you’d maybe reconsider.”

“No.”

The Avatar scratched his head. “What if I paid you?”

“Do you have money?”

The Avatar’s smile turned sly. “I have something better. Wisdom.”

Zuko had the urge to cover his eyes and groan. It was like his uncle had transformed into a 12-year-old right before his eyes. 

The Avatar mistook his silence for agreement. He cleared his throat once before intoning, “Not displaying himself he shines forth, not promoting himself he is distinguished, not claiming reward he gains merit, not seeking glory his glory—”

Zuko flicked the Avatar’s arrow. “Shut up. Please shut up.” 

“But I haven’t finished the lesson, Zuko,” the Avatar said, blinking big innocent eyes. 

The Avatar was about as innocent as a fox. “I’ll teach you something, Avatar,” Zuko ground out menacingly. “Hold out your hand.”

The Avatar readily held out his hand. 

Zuko slid one of his dao back in its sheath. He flipped the other one in his hand to grab it by the blade, and slapped the hilt into the Avatar’s hand. 

The Avatar held the weapon like it was a rotten fish. “Um,” he said. The blade was clearly too heavy for him, the point tipping to hit the ground. “Do you want this back?”

Zuko stroked his chin, thinking about the best way to piss the Avatar off. “Swordsmanship isn’t for you,” he finally determined. “You’ll do better with knives.”

“Can I do better with neither?”

Zuko finally took his dao back, and the Avatar looked relieved, at least until Zuko clapped him on the shoulder and started dragging him towards Edano. “Let’s go buy you some daggers,” Zuko said, his teeth bared in a mean approximation of a smile. “I’ll teach you how to gut someone.”

“While I appreciate the thought,” the Avatar said, squirming. “Really.” Zuko grip on the Avatar’s shoulder made it so that he couldn’t escape. “I’m not a weapons kind of guy, though.”

Zuko enjoyed his discomfort. A distant part of him realized that he was taking his frustration out on the closest target, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Why should he care? Zuko wasn’t a nice person. “You just need some _training, _Avatar. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you everything you need to know about killing.”

“Again. I’d prefer not to,” the Avatar squeaked. 

“No, no,” Zuko said. “I insist.”

In Edano, Zuko did purchase the Avatar two daggers. They were as long as the boy’s forearm, and they came with their own sheaths. The Avatar miserably strapped them around his waist. 

Zuko found it hilarious. 

* * *

—

* * *

The next day, there was still no sign of the Water Tribe siblings. In the morning, he found the Avatar’s two daggers inside Zuko’s bag. Zuko had half-expected the boy to dump them in the river, and was a little surprised that the Avatar had given them back instead. Zuko wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

June wanted him to meet a traveling trader named Bonbon. Bonbon had been almost everywhere in the past few days, June had told him. He’s bound to have some good information. 

Bonbon, a man who looked more like a ball of hair than a person, shared a bit of news. Gaipan had been washed away by a broken dam. He heard that refugees from there were traveling to Hua Li. Nobody had heard anything from Makapu, and a lot of people had warned him not to go there. Nobody was quite sure why. Some people had said that a spirit had overtaken it. Others had said that the villagers had turned into a cannibalistic cult. Bonbon assured them that rumors like that were common. Makapu had always been a village that kept to itself. It wasn’t really worth much, anyways. Even the Fire Nation hadn’t bothered with it.

Bonbon told them that the only place that the Avatar had been spotted had been in Edano. 

* * *

—

* * *

The next day, there was still no sign of the Water Tribe siblings. That night, before they settled down for a fitful sleep, the Avatar asked Zuko if he thought Sokka and Katara were dead. Zuko said that he didn’t know. 

“But they could be,” the Avatar said. 

“People die all the time,” Zuko said, pushing down the brim of his farmer’s hat. 

“I know,” the Avatar said quietly, looking off into the darkness of the forest. “I just wish they didn’t have to.”

* * *

—

* * *

The next day the sky was heavy with the weight of rain. 

“Chunso,” June told them, slamming her glass onto their table, sloshing wine over the wood. She straddled a chair and rested her arms on the back of it. “Just heard that the Avatar’s been spotted in Chunso.”

Zuko instantly tensed, but the Avatar was a second behind. It could have been the bags under his eyes. “But I’m right here,” the Avatar said, pointing at himself.

June took a large swig of her wine. “Exactly.”

“Then that must mean—” the Avatar started, before gasping, “It’s them!”

June smiled. “Right on the money.” 

* * *

—

* * *

“Edano,” Sokka whispered excitedly to his sister as they exited the Spirit’s Tongue. “That’s gotta be it! Aang’s gotta be in Edano!”

Katara looked up at him and smiled, tenuous and hopeful. 

It was nearing the end of winter. 

* * *

—


	9. Wanted: Avatar Aang - Part II

Zuko knew it was dangerous to start asking questions. Ask yourself how the Water Tribe siblings had managed to knock you out, how you’d lost any chance you had left of saving your uncle, and then you were asking yourself how you’d let your uncle be captured in the first place. You were asking yourself why you’d ever thought you had a chance of returning home, why you’d ever thought you could redeem yourself in the eyes of your nation. You were asking yourself why you were never good enough for your father. 

His ears were ringing, and when he looked up at the sky, the clouds spun like flying bison. His stomach rolled, and he curled onto his side in the dirt of the alleyway in case he needed to vomit. 

He felt someone touch his back and he flinched. The small motion of his head made it spike with pain, and he collapsed his forehead onto the dirt. 

“Lee,” he heard June say softly, “What happened? Can you stand?”

Zuko would much rather not stand, but he pushed himself up on his elbow. 

“Somebody did a real number on the back of your head,” June said. “Who got the jump on you?”

Zuko pushed himself all the way up into a sitting position, and he felt so dizzy that he was sure he would’ve collapsed if June hadn’t kneeled in front of him and grabbed his shoulder. 

“Hey, stay with me,” she said. She waved her hand in front of his face and it made him feel like his brain was spiraling off into the sky. He closed his eyes. 

“Okay,” June said, like an exhalation of air. “Not doing so hot, huh?”

His brow furrowed. He knew he should be demanding answers, but all he said was, “I’m always hot.”

She let out a breathy laugh. “Narcissistic brat. That’s the first thing you say to me?”

“No,” Zuko said slowly. “I meant that—”

“I know what you meant.”

Zuko rubbed his forehead, like that would force his thoughts to coalesce. “Where’s the Avatar?” he asked. 

“I thought he was with you.”

“No,” Zuko said. “We split up. Said he could cover more ground.”

“You think he ditched you?”

Zuko frowned. He wondered if the Avatar would do something like that. But he had only known him for a few weeks. Zuko didn’t trust him. “Maybe,” he said. 

“The Avatar didn’t do this?” June pointed at his head.

It took him a second longer than it should have to put it together. “No. That was Sokka.”

“That’s the kid you’re looking for?”

Zuko closed his eyes again and let out a sigh. It seemed to help, because the urge to kill came and went like a fluttering leaf. “Unfortunately,” he said. 

June tutted. “Poor baby apprentice,” she said. 

“Shut up, June,” he growled. “I’m not in the mood.”

“You’re never in the mood,” she huffed. “Cut to the part where you tell me how some brat managed to get the jump on you.”

Zuko ran his hands through his hair, pushing wayward strands out of his face and onto his back, and tried to keep his skull from splitting down the middle. “By the time I sensed him it was too late.”

“How cryptic.”

Zuko snorted, his lip curling. “I knew it was a trap to go to Chunso.”

“Well, first of all,” June counted on her index finger. “You think everything’s a trap. And second of all, they knew that the Avatar would want to meet up with them. They expected you to show up dogging his heels like a gopher bear. Of course they’d plan for it.”

“How could they possibly plan for that?” he ground out.

She shrugged. “I don’t know these people.”

But Zuko did. He didn’t know them well, but he knew them well enough. Sokka had come up with the plan they had used to break the Avatar out of Pohuai Stronghold. Zuko was likely in one of Sokka’s plans right now. 

He clenched his forehead as it spiked with pain. 

What was the point? 

He slumped, and June tightened her grip on his shoulders to keep him from sliding back on the ground. “Lee?” she asked. 

There wasn’t a point. His uncle was a traitor because Zuko had wanted to walk in the sun. Because Zuko was weak. His uncle had been captured, being used for an invasion, and there was nothing Zuko could do about that. Zuko’s mind was blowing smoke. There was never anything there. He felt his hands fall back to hit the dirt, his nails scraping long troughs in the ground. There had never been a chance. 

It occurred to him that he didn’t have to get up. All his life, he’d been pushed to the ground, and he’d always stood back up. But Agni, what was the point? Just to get pushed back down again? 

When would it finally end? 

June pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. “You feel cold,” she told him, her voice barely above a whisper. “C’mon, you need to stand with me. We’ll get you patched up.”

She tugged Zuko’s arm around her shoulders and settled her own arm across his back. “On three,” she said. 

His head bobbed forward, and Zuko watched the black strands of his hair hem in his vision. 

“C’mon,” June said. “I can’t do this alone. We’ll do it together, okay? One.”

Zuko closed his eyes. 

“Don’t you dare give up on me, you damn brat,” June said, and she shook him. “Don’t you dare. Two.”

He felt his good eye blink open. 

“Three,” June hissed into his ear.

* * *

—

* * *

Sokka and Katara had fought. The fight was this: If they left for Edano now, wouldn’t their staged Avatar sighting have been for nothing? 

But that was always a longshot, Sokka had said. It was better to go with the concrete information that Aang had been seen in Edano a week ago. 

But that was a week ago, Katara had said. What were the chances of Aang still being there? The staged sighting was _Sokka’s_ plan. She’d jabbed her finger at him. 

Yeah, Sokka had agreed defensively, but he had never expected that they’d hear an actual rumor about where he was!

Katara couldn’t believe that Sokka was so quick to abandon one of his plans. 

Sokka couldn’t believe that Katara was ignoring the best lead they might ever get. 

The fight had ended when Katara had stormed off into town, fists clenched and seething, and Sokka had slumped over a lonely table in the Spirit’s Tongue. 

Sokka supposed, nervously waving off a thin and hungry looking server, that meant Katara had won, because they weren’t going anywhere now. 

The next day Sokka ran into Zuko. 

It happened like this. Sokka found Katara in the morning, and while they hadn’t exactly apologized to each other, Sokka had said that they could leave for Edano that night, or maybe tomorrow, and Katara had said they could leave that afternoon, if Sokka wanted to, and they both ate breakfast and it was like nothing had happened at all. 

They split up after breakfast to search for any sign of Aang, and while Sokka was strolling down one of the small, rough-hewn cobblestone streets of Chunso, thumbs hooked in his obi, mind preoccupied with thoughts of lunch, there was a man across the street wearing a dark robe and a farmer’s conical hat. 

Sokka didn’t think much of him, until the man turned, and something glinted gold at the man’s hip. It caught his eye enough for Sokka to realize that it was a pair of dual dao, and that the man was wearing Water Tribe blue, and that his hair was long, black, and tattered, and that there was a burn scar on his face and that—

That was Zuko. 

The street was busy enough that Sokka caught glimpses of the other man as he walked. He was headed in the same direction that Sokka was, but his pace was faster. Sokka saw him scanning the people walking by, and Sokka made sure to stay several feet behind. 

Sokka’s hand closed around his boomerang, and he thought about his sister’s face as she told him about how Zuko had kidnapped Aang. He frowned, and remembered standing back to back with Zuko in a hall filled with Fire Nation guards, and La, at this moment— Sokka desperately wished that Zuko had never kidnapped Aang at all. 

He shook his head. This was no time for wishful thinking. Zuko had made his choices, and so would Sokka. 

He didn’t wait long. Zuko turned a bend down into an alleyway, and Sokka flung his boomerang. 

* * *

—

* * *

When Katara saw Aang, she felt like sobbing. Maybe it was fate, the way they both caught each other’s eyes across the street, the way each of their eyes widened in shock, neither of them moving a muscle, the crowd of the street curling around them like a stream coursing through two rocks. Katara didn’t know how long that moment lasted before they were pushing their way toward each other. Katara didn’t even apologize for shoving someone out of her way, didn’t even recognize the pedestrian’s peeved looks. 

Aang was in her arms, or maybe Katara was in Aang’s arms. She felt like twirling. She laughed next to Aang’s ear and Aang laughed next to hers. 

When they finally pulled away, Katara left her hands on Aang’s shoulders. She felt herself frown as she looked at him, at the yellowing bruises on his face, at the bags under his eyes, at the rips and tears in his robes, at the black cloak he was wearing. When she looked back at his face, it was beaming with a toothy grin, and she gently smiled. 

“Long time no see, Katara,” Aang said, almost shyly. 

Katara didn’t know what to say, so she just huffed, “Don’t act like you were out on vacation, Aang! You were _kidnapped_!”

Aang scratched the back of his head. “Was I? I guess I was, huh.”

Katara tightened her grip on his shoulders, struck by the weight of her own worry. “Are you okay?”

“I am now,” he said cheesily. 

It was such an Aang response that Katara bit back a smile, but it didn’t do much to assuage her concern. “Let’s get out of the middle of the street.”

Katara dragged Aang over against the side of someone’s wood-paneled house, where they were out of the way of the flow of traffic, if not exactly in private, and demanded, “What happened to you? How are you here? Where’s Zuko?”

The dopey look on Aang’s face faded, replaced by a small frown. “I’ll be happy to tell you everything, Katara— but first, we need to get going as soon as possible. There’s trouble.”

Katara swallowed. Zuko must still be tracking him, she thought. Aang was right. They needed to get to Appa. “Let’s grab Sokka, then. You can explain everything to both of us once we’re as far away from here as possible.”

She grabbed Aang’s wrist again and moved to merge back in the crowd, but she stopped. Aang’s brow was furrowed, like he wanted to say something. “Aang?” she asked. 

Aang shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said. 

* * *

—

* * *

Sokka ran through the streets. If Zuko was here, then Aang must be here. It was simple logic. The question was: Was Aang chained to a tree somewhere in the surrounding forest? Locked up inside an inn? Had he escaped? Was Aang looking for him and Katara?

Sokka paused as he turned a bend, his breath misting in front of him. He should’ve interrogated Zuko. He should’ve tied him up and demanded answers, instead of running away like a wimp. Why was Sokka always running away? He cursed at the ground. Was it too late to go back?

A woman wearing all black knocked into his shoulder and he came back to himself. He idly glanced back at the woman with the topknot, but she didn’t say anything as she walked back the way Sokka had come and it didn’t seem to matter, anyways. Sokka kept running.

In the clearing in the woods where they’d left Appa, Sokka finally came to a stop. Appa didn’t seem to acknowledge him at all, which Sokka thought was very typical of the flying bison, until he realized that it was because there was an Avatar stuck to the bison’s face. 

“Aang!” Sokka yelled. 

Aang slid off Appa’s face. “Sokka!” he yelled. 

Before Sokka could take a single step, Aang had flung himself at him. Sokka huffed as the boy hit him around the waist, and they quickly wrapped their arms around each other. 

“Aang!” Sokka yelled again.

“Sokka!” Aang yelled again. 

“Boys,” Katara grumbled to herself as she came into view from around Appa’s other side, with Momo on her shoulder. 

Sokka would have been very happy to keep shouting Aang’s name and maybe shed another tear (not that he had shed any tears), but now he had an audience so he let Aang go and the boy floated to the ground. Sokka surreptitiously wiped at his eye. 

Aang’s smile was so wide it was a wonder that it was contained by his face. “I’m so glad both of you are okay!”

“Okay?” Sokka spat, puffing out his chest. “You think anything can get the better of us?” 

Aang furrowed his brow. “I mean,” he hedged. 

Sokka crossed his arms. Clearly, he was being betrayed. Right after they finally reunited. The gall of this kid. “Who asked you?” 

Katara came up to them and rested a hand on each of their shoulders. “I’m glad we’re all together again, but let’s not linger. Zuko’s still after Aang.”

Sokka and Aang both frowned. “About that—” they both started, and, shocked, they looked down at each other.

Aang gestured for Sokka to go first. 

“I saw him,” Sokka said, flicking his gaze between his sister and Aang. “On the street. I must have knocked him out with Boomerang.”

Aang paled. “You knocked him out,” he said. 

Sokka shrugged. “Either that or he’s dead.”

“Dead,” Aang repeated, turning impossibly paler. 

Sokka furrowed his brow. “Aang, I get that he’s a scary dude, but he can’t hurt you anymore. Once we get on Appa, that guy is a goner.”

“Yeah, Aang,” Katara said gently. “He won’t be able to beat us now. Sokka’s all healed up, and we’re expecting him. He can’t trick us twice.”

Aang pressed his fingers together and stared at the ground. “It’s not that,” he said. Momo fluttered over to Aang’s shoulder and the boy’s mouth curled into a tiny smile while he stroked the lemur’s head, but it quickly faded. “There’s something I need to tell you guys.”

Sokka leaned back on his heels, a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

After a moment, Aang’s fist clenched, and his face cleared, like he had finally made a decision. “We’re taking Zuko to the North Pole,” Aang said. 

It took Sokka a moment to let the words process through his mind. And when they did, the only response he came up with was, “Uh, no we’re not.”

“Aang, did he threaten you?” Katara asked. “Is he holding something over you?”

Aang shook his head. “No. Guys, this is something I’ve thought a lot about, and— I think it’s the right move. I promised him I’d take him to the North Pole and he’s been, well. Not nice, but— friendlier. The thing is, he just wants his uncle back. If his uncle is anything like Gyatso, then I get it.” Aang let out a long sigh, folding his hands inside his cloak, looking up and meeting Sokka’s eyes and then Katara’s. “He’s desperate, he’s lonely, and we can help him. I think we should.”

Sokka’s mind drew a blank. He opened his mouth, frustrated, and then closed it again. 

“I just don’t get it,” Katara said. “What does he want with the North Pole?”

If anything, Aang’s face turned grimmer than Sokka ever thought possible. “That’s the other thing I need to talk to you about,” he intoned. “The Fire Nation is going to invade the North Pole.”

* * *

—

* * *

Back out on the streets of Chunso, Sokka wouldn’t let go of the sick feeling eating away at his stomach like a piece of rancid meat. All this time wasted looking for each other, ferrying survivors from a natural disaster, and perhaps they could have already been in the North Pole, helping to prepare for the invasion. 

Did the Northern Water Tribe know? Did they know the Fire Nation was headed for their walls with everything they had? It made him feel sick. 

What if they were too late?

Sokka looked over at his sister. She was biting her lip. It was Sokka who had finally said, “Let’s hear what Zuko has to say. If he can convince us that he won’t harm us or the Northern Water Tribe, then I suppose we can bring him along.”

Right before they had left, Katara had pulled him aside, so that Aang couldn’t hear. “We can’t bring someone Fire Nation to the North Pole, Sokka. Especially not someone who’s attacked us, _repeatedly_.”

“I know,” Sokka had admitted. “But we can’t forget that he broke Aang out of that Fire Nation Stronghold. We can’t forget that he saved my life. If we can trust anything, it’s that he’s only allied to himself.”

“We can’t trust that,” Katara had said. “We can’t trust anything he says.”

Sokka led them through the streets to that one fateful alleyway, half-hoping that there would be no one there.

The alleyway was empty. 

Sokka led them deeper into it, kneeling down and touching the stray blood droplets from where Zuko must have hit the ground. It was definitely the right alleyway. Zuko must have left already. At least he wasn’t dead. Sokka couldn’t help but feel relieved about that. 

They were suddenly encased in shadow, like the sun had passed behind a cloud. Slowly, Sokka, Katara and Aang turned around, coming face to face with a star-snouted beast of an animal, large enough to block off the entire street from view. On top of the beast was a black-clad woman, dangerously dangling a whip from one hand, back lit by the sun. 

“I’ve found you, Avatar,” the woman said, her voice dripping with malice. 

In Sokka’s experience, there was no nice, benevolent way to say _‘I’ve found you, Avatar.’_

“Aang, get back!” Sokka said, shoving Aang behind him. In unison, he and Katara met shoulder to shoulder, Katara with her hand on her water pouch, Sokka with his hand on his boomerang. 

The woman idly flicked her whip. For a long, tense second, no one moved. 

“June!” Aang called from behind them, his voice phony like he was trying to appease a bully. “You’ve found me! Yay! Now can you please put the whip down?”

The woman narrowed her eyes. Wait— Aang knew this woman? And why did she look familiar? 

“Avatar,” the woman said, “It looks to me like you’ve gone back on your word. I don’t much like people who’ve gone back on their word. You made a deal.”

Sokka felt Aang push him to the side, and Sokka reluctantly let him back out in front. 

“I know this looks bad,” Aang said. “But Sokka didn’t know about it. You can’t blame him.”

“Of course you’d cover yourself now that I’ve confronted you,” she sneered. “If you were smart you would have already flown away.”

“We _haven’t_ flown away,” Aang said, holding out his hands like he was warning off a wild animal, “Because it was an honest misunderstanding. We’re going to take Lee with us to the North Pole.”

The woman flicked her whip again. She frowned at them, taking them all in, one at a time, until she finally landed on Sokka. Her look was scorching, like she wanted to flay him from his skin. The woman looked away and Sokka let out a breath. 

“Follow me, then,” she said, shifting in her saddle. “I’ll take you to the brat.”

The beast she rode took off in great leaps and bounds, too fast to follow on foot, but, for their sake, she stopped and waited for them to catch up. 

Katara and Sokka shared a look. Aang ran on ahead of them, his brows furrowed uncharacteristically stern. 

She took them to the town healers. It was a busy place, and nothing at all like Kaku’s hut in Makapu. And thinking of Kaku’s hut made Sokka think of Kaku who hadn’t— made it. Sokka clenched his fist and tried to think of something else. The front of the building looked a lot like an apothecary, with rows and shelves of plants and other types of matter. In the back, there were rows and rows of cots on the ground, most of them filled with sick children and the ailing elderly, loved ones hovering near their cots.

The woman June had dismounted in front of the building. She patted the snout of her beast and whispered something to it, and then she turned toward them. She reminded Sokka of a Kyoshi Warrior, especially the way she stood, like she was about to clobber them at any second. Strike that, maybe she _was_ a Kyoshi Warrior. 

He didn’t want to ask, especially with the way she’d looked at him. 

Aang bounced on his heels. “How is he? Is he in there? Is he okay?”

June crossed her arms. Sokka noticed that Katara was biting her lip, staring into the open doorway of the town healers like she was planning something. 

“If any of you make a move,” June said, looking directly at Sokka, “You won’t be leaving this building in one piece.”

Sokka scratched the back of his head. Who was this woman? Was she Zuko’s older sister? She was certainly scary enough. He felt like he had to say something. “I’m not going to attack an injured man.”

Her eyes flashed at him, but she just turned and sauntered inside. 

Zuko hadn’t been visible from the doorway. He was tucked away in the farthest corner, not lying on a cot, just leaning back against the wall, a clear five feet between him and anyone else standing in the over-crowded room. Around his farmer’s hat, Sokka could see white bandages wrapped around his head. 

June led them all like turtle-ducks in a row, edging around the corners of the room. The air was filled with the quiet, hushed silence that came around the fatally ill. Zuko didn’t once look up at them, despite the fact that he looked like he was awake, perched as he was with one arm leaning on his knee. 

June kneeled in front of Zuko. She considered the small patch of Zuko’s face that could be seen around his hair. Aang bit his thumb, but didn’t say anything, glancing at someone who coughed at the other side of the room. 

June slapped Zuko across the face. 

“Hey!” Katara immediately blurted, like she couldn’t help herself. 

“Hey!” Aang said, a moment later. 

Sokka felt speechless. 

At least that elicited some response from Zuko, making him groan and blink his eyes open. “What?” the man said faintly, reaching up and touching the side of his face that June had just slapped. 

“I’ve brought your bounties for you, idiot apprentice,” June said. 

Sokka nervously looked around the room. People had started staring. He sighed. It was only going to get worse from here. 

Katara’s hand laid on her water pouch. Oh, was she going to—?

“I’m a healer,” Katara said to June. “A waterbending healer. I can fix his injury if you can convince him not to attack me.”

June raised a sardonic eyebrow. “You hear that, brat? She says she’s a healer.”

Zuko blinked at her. His voice was raspier than normal, like it had been grated over by sand. “Aren’t we already at the healers?”

June turned to Katara, tipping her head. “He’s all yours, bender.” She pushed herself to her feet and then laid a heavy hand on Katara’s shoulder, looking down at her with a sense of gravity. “If you mess him up, I’ll kill you.” 

June took a step back.

To Katara’s credit, she only hesitated for a second. To Sokka’s credit, he deliberately placed himself between his sister and the crazy whip lady. Sokka wished that he could also place himself between his sister and the crazy sword dude, but there’s only so much of him to go around.

Aang had taken to kneeling to Zuko’s right, eyes attentively watching the lines of Zuko’s face. Sokka frowned. Had they— somehow— become friends?

Katara knelt down in front of Zuko as well, water covering her palms. 

Zuko scrunched up his brow as he looked at her. 

Katara raised a stubborn eyebrow. “What?” she hissed. 

“You’re the Water Tribe girl,” Zuko told her. 

June rubbed her forehead. “Guanyin please save this boy,” she muttered to herself. 

“That’s just one of his quirks,” Aang cheerfully told Katara. “He doesn’t like to call people by their names ‘cause then he can convince himself he won’t care what happens to them.”

Katara nodded unsurely. Sometimes Aang just came up with some crazy information, and there really wasn’t much of a way to respond to it. “Okay. Sure.” She turned back to Zuko. “This won’t hurt,” she said, long practiced in saying this specific sentence. “Please hold still.”

Katara took off the bandages wrapped around Zuko’s head, taking off his hat in the process. Sokka wasn’t sure why he was wearing the hat in the first place, at least until Katara cradled the back of Zuko’s head. 

Were those— horns? 

Aang looked at Katara with stars in his eyes. The horn-thing didn’t seem to bother him at all. Oh, right. Aang wouldn’t know about Katara’s healing. 

June’s face was unreadable. 

It took a few minutes, with Katara’s brow furrowed in concentration. Sokka had seen it countless times by now. Zuko didn’t respond to the healing much beyond wrinkling his nose. 

Katara finally pulled away with a small little smile on her face. “I think it’s mostly healed,” she said, which would make this easily the most successful healing venture Katara had ever taken. 

Sokka wanted to pat her back and say good job, but she’d probably think he was being sarcastic, so he just patted her back and said, fairly quietly, out of respect for the room, “Great job. You’ve healed Aang’s kidnapper.”

Katara immediately turned pensive. 

Aang, on the other hand, looked ecstatic. “Katara, that was amazing!” he whisper-yelled. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen! You’ve got to teach me how to do that!”

Zuko blinked, and when he opened his eyes, he looked at each of them in turn, all hovering over him. He didn’t say anything. He tucked both his knees tighter against his chest, scowling. 

Katara was the second to realize that Zuko was now in a more conscious state. She tipped her head to him. “You’re welcome,” she said. 

Zuko scowled furiously at her. He reminded Sokka of a cornered armadillo lion. 

Aang finally tore himself away from goggling at Katara to whisper-yell, “Lang! I’m so glad you’re okay!” Aang didn’t try to touch Zuko at all, but the way he was gesturing said he might’ve wanted to. Why did Aang keep calling Zuko different names? First ‘Lee’ and now ‘Lang’? Sokka felt like he was missing something. He looked at the small black horns still jutting from Zuko’s head. A lot of somethings. 

“I’m confused,” Zuko finally said. 

“Me too,” Sokka sighed.

“I’ll explain,” June barked, Zuko’s head jutting immediately up to her. “This one tried to kill you.” She pointed at Sokka with her thumb. “You told me that. Then you passed out. Now you’re here. The waterbender healed you. The Avatar says it’s a misunderstanding.”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “Thanks for nothing, hag.” 

“The things I do for you,” June sniffed. “No respect.”

Zuko tilted his head, as if trying to remember something. “Did you slap me?”

“Your poor, idiot addled mind,” June said, waving dismissively. “Too many head injuries can do that to you, brat. You’re lucky the girl came along.”

Sokka looked over at Aang. ‘Are they always like this?’ he mouthed. 

Aang nodded forlornly. 

“Let’s get down to business,” Katara said, hands on her hips in her ‘let’s get down to business’ stance, meeting Zuko’s tired and scowling gaze. “I want nothing more than to leave you in this town and never see your face again for as long as I live.”

Okay. Maybe a bad start?

“Consider it mutual,” Zuko growled. 

“Maybe Aang should do the talking,” Sokka offered. 

Katara and Zuko both glared at him. 

Sokka held up his hands in surrender. “Just saying.”

“I agreed to take you to the North Pole,” Aang said, smiling a bit at Sokka. At least someone appreciates him. “Katara and Sokka need some convincing that you’re not going to hurt the Northern Water Tribe in any way. Oh, and that you’re not going to attack me anymore.”

“I have no reason to do anything to the Northern Water Tribe,” Zuko said, after a moment. “I want my uncle back. I’ll attack the Fire Nation to do it. That’s all there is to it.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Sokka said. “There’s one huge thing I’m not getting. Your uncle’s been taken by the Fire Nation ‘cause he’s some fugitive, I guess. But why would they take a fugitive on—” Sokka lowered his voice, “—an invasion fleet?”

Zuko frowned. He really didn’t look very intimidating or dangerous, the way he was now, curled up on the ground with drying blood in his hair. But talking to him always felt a bit off in a way Sokka couldn’t explain. There was something unnerving about his eyes. The only possible experience Sokka could compare it to was talking to Aang on those very rare moments where the kid said something too wise for him to possibly know. Sokka would have chalked it up to a firebender thing— but what were those horns? It looked like some Spirit World nonsense to him.

One question at a time, he told himself. 

“My uncle used to be a general,” Zuko finally said. “A good one. Zhao must have recognized him.” He rolled his eyes. “He could have been a fan.”

“Excuse me, but do you hear yourself?” Sokka said. “That’s crazy talk. He’d have to be an _insanely _good general for this to have any chance of happening at all.” Sokka pointed down at the firebender. “Just _who_ is your uncle, Zuko?”

Aang spontaneously burst into a coughing fit. Sokka gave him a confused look. Katara shrugged at him. June, on the other hand, seemed like a statue, eyes locked on the man still leaning back against the wall. 

It shocked Sokka to see that Zuko looked— panicked?

“Answer the question,” Sokka said, unsure about what was going on. 

“You wanna answer that?” June asked, her voice like ice. 

Zuko started to push himself to his feet. Everyone followed suit, taking a step back to accommodate Zuko, who had one hand steadying himself on the wall. He let go, and he was suddenly as strong and as capable as he had always looked. Well, except for that time, all those weeks ago, where they’d found him naked and bathing in a river. 

Tui and La, had that really been the first time they’d met Zuko? And Aang had thought he was a girl. So much had changed. 

“Aang,” Zuko said, as solemn as he always seemed to be, clapping his hand on Aang’s shoulder. Aang looked surprised. “Don’t leave without me. Convince your friends that I can come with you.”

“Uh,” Aang stuttered. “What? Shouldn’t you be doing that?”

“I have to talk with my teacher for a bit.”

Aang tapped his fingers nervously against his thigh. “Don’t die.”

“Whoa,” Katara said, waving her arms in front of Zuko, who pulled his hand away from Aang’s shoulder. “Whatever you think you’re going to tell her, you should be telling _us_.”

“Shut up,” June snapped. “This has nothing to do with you.”

It really said something about his sister that she turned around and said directly to June’s face, “This has everything to do with us. I’m not going to travel with anyone who’s keeping secrets.”

June seemed to tower over Katara like a thunderous shadow. “I’ve known this brat for two years,” she said. “I’ve been through thousands of scraps with that piece of Fire Nation trash at my side and I never once questioned him. You know why, bender?” June cracked her knuckles. “Because he’s got _integrity_. If you can’t take my word on it,” June spit on the ground, “Go die in a pit.”

June pushed her way out of the room. 

Sokka nervously saw how many people were staring at them. 

They all left as hurriedly as possible. Once they reached the front door, Zuko burst into a jog and smacked the back of Aang’s head as he passed him, saying, “Don’t leave.” 

He ran after the tail of June’s beast. 

Katara pointed incredulously after the swinging fabric of Zuko’s robe. “We’re just letting him go?” 

Aang rubbed at his head. “I wish he’d stop hitting me.”

Sokka tried to get his thoughts in order. “Well. He’s got to come back, right?” He met Aang and Katara’s own looks of confusion. “Right?”

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko never should have told anyone his real name. Zuko was not a popular name. Zuko was the name of the disgraced and dead first-born son of Fire Lord Ozai, and the name, like the person, was dead. Some hicks from the Southern Water Tribe would never recognize it, and some 100 year old airbender would never recognize it— but June, who worked the criminal circuit, who knew everything about what was happening in the world— she would know it. 

Zuko caught up to June in the forest. She dismounted from Nyla, one hand brushing through his fur, and was quiet. 

The name, by itself, was not damning. If June hadn’t known him for so long, if she had just met him today and found out his name, she would still have made the connection, but would have never leaped to the conclusion that she now must have. Because June knew him from those days directly after the prison, where he knew nothing about the Earth Kingdom, or farming, or doing any kind of labor. 

She must have already known about Uncle, too. She must have seen his wanted poster. Zuko had always known she had seen it, but she’d never brought it up. 

“I can’t blame you for not telling me,” June said, her voice subdued. “It’s not something I ever wanted to know. I always knew you were hiding something from me, but just— I never imagined it would be this. This is big. This is much bigger than me.”

Zuko felt his fist close. He didn’t know what to say. 

June tilted her head back, letting loose a heavy laugh. “And to think— all this time I could’ve been calling you fancypants!”

It was weak, but she was trying. “Please don’t,” he said. 

“Yeah,” she sighed somberly. “Doesn’t suit you anymore, does it? Not for a long time.”

Zuko shook his head. 

June took a step closer to him. “I met you in that Kisetsu port where you jumped through three stalls just to tackle some bread thieves. You remember that? I forced you to pay property damages.”

“‘Cause you were worried a bunch of middle-aged men with wooden spoons would beat me to death,” Zuko said. 

“I knew those men!” June said, a smile on her black-tinted lips. “They’d have done it, brat. And you looked so weak and scrawny. Like a starved baby.”

“Shut up.”

June smirked. “And after all this time, that starved baby was the blasted Crown Prince.”

It made his heart jump to hear it, words he’d never heard from anyone but his uncle for three years. He ground out, “That’s not who I am anymore.”

“It’s funny how I believe you,” June said. “But I also think I don’t.”

Zuko didn’t know what to say. 

“There’s always been something about you that’s different.” June reached out and Zuko realized that he wasn’t wearing his hat anymore. She touched one of his frosted dragon horns. “You’re an idiot if you thought you could hide this.”

Zuko jerked his head back. 

She looked at him. Waiting. He had to say something. He had to explain himself. 

“I’m cursed,” Zuko said. 

“Oh good,” June sighed, wiping her brow. “I thought I was just about to find out something really weird about the royal family.”

It was so startling that Zuko actually laughed. June smiled too, and joined in on it, like it was their big grand joke— the Fire Nation royal family cursed to slowly transform into a dragon once they reached puberty like some bad romance opera, as he was sure June was thinking. But eventually the thought turned to his father and his sister, and he found the laughter had dried up. 

June sighed, looking him up and down. “You’ve got too much going on, brat,” she said, like it was his fault. “You should go back to being a simple Earth Kingdom bounty hunter. I think you’ll be happier.”

“Happier,” Zuko said, and it felt like the word had no meaning at all. Had he ever been happy as an Earth Kingdom bounty hunter? Had he ever tried to be?

In an odd gesture, June reached out and patted his shoulder. “You’ll figure it out.”

Zuko stood very still. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t it?” June said, smiling in that specific lazy way of hers that she got when was sure of something. 

Zuko shook off her hand, because it was something familiar to do. He felt like something was ending, but he didn’t know what it was. “Are you going to tell anyone?” he asked.

“Nah,” she said. “No one would believe me. I’d lose credibility. That’s money down the gutter.”

“Thought so.”

There was something else Zuko wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure how, or why, and anyways, June hadn’t attacked him, or gone off yelling about the Crown Prince, so there was no reason to stick around when his uncle was approaching the North Pole. 

He crossed his arms, cleared his throat, and said, “I’ll get your money to you. Eventually.”

“You better,” she said. “Pay me off, Princey boy.”

Zuko grimaced and shook his head, “Never say that again.”

June continued to smirk at him. “Buy my silence.”

June was acting normal. Unbelievably, she was acting normal, and that seemed to answer the question that Zuko was unable to form into words. 

“Pretty sure that’s the one thing money can’t buy,” he said. 

“Maybe for _your_ broke ass wallet.”

Zuko abruptly turned around. “I’m leaving.”

“You’re no fun,” June said, and Zuko felt arms wrap around his neck from behind, and when they _didn’t _start choking him to death, he took his hand off his swords. June pressed her face next to his head, and said, “I really hope you don’t die, my idiot apprentice.”

When she let go of him, she kicked him in the ass and he nearly fell onto the ground. 

Zuko turned and glared hard enough to melt her into paste. 

“Get lost!” she yelled at him. 

“I hope you trip on your ego and break your nose,” Zuko told her. 

“Don’t cry for me too much, you big baby,” she said, miming wiping away tears. 

“The only thing I’ll mourn is the fact that I won’t be the one to do you in, you gold-digging hag.”

“Do me in?” she asked. “Hah! Maybe in fifty years, you piece of prepubescent cabbage slug.”

“I think the dementia’s already kicking in, June. Remember when you said I might be better than—”

June snapped her whip at him. Zuko jumped out of the way, and the tip snagged against the ground. 

“I don’t want to hear another word out of you!” she yelled. “If I see you again in a year, it’ll be too soon!”

As he looked at June, one of the most terrifying women he knew, with her skull topknot and tattooed arms, Zuko tried to ignore how much he didn’t want to leave. His chest felt tight, like a cage was pressing in on his heart. What if he stayed and got into one last fist fight? What if he stayed and got her back for slapping him? 

No. He was being stupid and weak. His uncle was in danger. 

He started walking away, but he couldn’t resist looking back at her again, leaning casually against her shirshu. Zuko shook his head. She would be safer than he would ever be, where he was going. He wondered if she had thought about that, about the dead Crown Prince of the Fire Nation waltzing into one of the last peaceful bastions of the world. 

Well, it wouldn’t be peaceful for long. 

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko found the Avatar and Sokka waiting in front of the town healers like good deer-dogs who were told to sit. Neither of them looked very happy about it. 

They watched Zuko stroll up to them, wearing his hood to make himself look like less of a spirit-human monster walking among men. 

“Let’s go,” Zuko said. 

“Aang,” Sokka whined, “Aang, he’s already trying to boss us around.”

At Sokka’s look, the Avatar made himself stand up straight and puffed out his chest. “Zuko,” he ordered with an imperious frown, “You will not boss us around!”

Zuko rolled his eyes. 

“He rolled his eyes at us!” Sokka exclaimed. 

Aang sent Sokka a knowing look, buffing his nails on his robes. “Don’t worry, Sokka. I know how to handle him.” The Avatar cleared his throat. “Zuko! You will not roll your eyes at us!”

Zuko glared at him. 

“I think we’re getting somewhere,” the Avatar whispered, blocking his mouth like the sound wouldn’t somehow reach Zuko anyways. 

Sokka rubbed his forehead and sighed. 

It was in that moment, as Zuko stood in front of Sokka and the Avatar, who were now his travel companions, and not his tools for redemption or breaking people out of Strongholds, that his mind was stuck, and had completely gone blank. 

What in Agni’s name was he supposed to do now?

Should he lean against the building like they were? Continue standing a few feet in front of them? What should he do with his hands? 

Zuko had decided to place one hand on the hilts of his swords by the time Katara emerged from the town healers. 

“Oh,” she said distastefully, “He’s still here.”

“Like a parasite!” Sokka said cheerfully. 

“Were you able to help some people?” the Avatar asked her, bouncing on his feet. 

“A few,” she said, wiping away some stray hairs from her forehead. “But a lot of the people in there are sick, and I don’t know how to heal that.” 

The Avatar frowned. “Well, I’m sure there are a lot of healers at the North Pole. Maybe you can learn from them!”

“That’s the plan!” Katara smiled. 

It was really like night and day with that girl. 

Zuko cleared his throat. “The North Pole,” he said. “Invasion.”

“What happened to June?” the Avatar asked, ignoring Zuko altogether, which was very typical. 

“She’s done with her job,” Zuko explained. “She’s probably going to go get drunk somewhere.”

“A woman of high-class, I see,” Sokka said, stroking his chin. 

A young woman escorted an elderly man into the town healers, and by mutual understanding it was decided that they couldn’t continue to loiter outside that building forever. Reluctantly, they set off as a group down the street. 

As it turned out, it was an interrogation on the move, because Sokka and Katara hemmed Zuko in like two walls covered in spikes, firing off their questions one after another from either side of Zuko, like he was caught in the middle of a very unpleasant game of fire-toss. 

“Who is June?” 

“Who is your uncle?”

“Why did you kidnap Aang?”

“What in the Spirit World are those things sticking out of your head?”

“How can we possibly trust you?”

It was a lot to take in, and a lot of things to answer incompletely, or entirely wrong. Zuko wasn’t the best at lying, but he _was_ very good at saying very little. 

“June’s a bounty hunter. My teacher.”

“I’ve told you. My uncle is a banished general.”

“I was going to use the Avatar to redeem my uncle’s honor.”

“I’ve been minorly cursed. It should wear off.”

"I have no reason to hurt any of you.”

When the first round was over, Sokka and Katara shot him identical looks of distrust. You could really see the family resemblance. The Avatar, on the other hand, looked relatively at ease. Zuko needed to hide his knife in the Avatar’s bedroll or something. He didn’t deserve to look so at ease while Zuko wanted to claw his own skin off. 

Sokka started by making Zuko cough up his uncle’s explicit name and rank. Zuko told him that his uncle was General Fon of the Nagata clan, which, as expected, meant nothing to the other boy. Sokka pressed him further, and Zuko told him that General Fon was responsible for the Hundred Days Offensive of the Western Front, which, while true (Zuko knew his history very well), still meant nothing to the other boy. But it seemed to appease him. 

“Let’s go back to the part where you said you were going to use the Avatar,” Sokka said. “Let’s discuss that for a second, huh?”

Zuko sighed. “The Fire Nation wants the Avatar captured more than anything. If I turned him in, I thought I would be able to bribe them into redeeming my uncle’s citizenship.” 

“You thought?” Sokka prompted. 

“My uncle is obviously no longer in a position where he can have his citizenship returned,” Zuko said sharply. 

“But let’s say you free him,” Katara said, eyes narrowed, “What then?”

“Nothing,” Zuko said, knowing it might not be true. “I’ll take my uncle and we’ll return to the Earth Kingdom.”

“Really?” Katara said. “Is that so?”

Zuko felt himself rising to her tone. “Yeah? What of it?”

“Okay,” Sokka said, drawing their attention away from each other’s throats. “We’re struggling to believe you, but we need to start somewhere, because we all know we need to be at the North Pole yesterday. Here’s a deal. Give your swords to me. While we’re on Appa, and when we’re walking around the Northern Water Tribe, I’ll be carrying them and all your other hidden weapons.”

Zuko felt his palms start sweating, but it was a reasonable request. He understood where Sokka was coming from. If the roles were reversed, Zuko knew he would be much worse. He could do that. He could give up his swords. 

“But we can’t forget he’s a firebender,” Katara snapped, “His whole body’s a weapon.”

“Then we’ll tie his hands,” Sokka offered. 

Zuko felt his vision briefly flare white. His foot caught a loose cobblestone, and he nearly tripped. The Avatar caught his arm. Zuko shook him off and kept walking. 

No. He didn’t think that was something he could do. 

“How’s that sound?” Sokka said, as gamely as he could. 

“I’ll give up my swords,” Zuko said, even as his hand clenched tighter on his hilts. “But I can’t—” It was suddenly very hard to talk. “Don’t — tie me — up.”

“Why not?” Katara said hotly. “You planning on betraying us?”

“No,” Zuko said from between clenched teeth.

“How’s this,” Sokka said, as if pitching another show idea, “we’ll only tie you up while we’re flying on Appa. It’ll come off at the North Pole.”

Zuko’s beating heart told him no, no, no, no. 

They were at the edge of the city of Chunso, now, moving once again back into the forest, but to a different part than the one where he’d talked to June. This must be where they hid their flying bison. 

Zuko didn’t answer. 

“I don’t know, guys,” the Avatar said. “I think taking his swords is good enough.”

“Aang,” Katara said softly, “I really don’t want to make any mistakes here. We’ve already seen too much death and misery and— I’m worried that we’re getting played. Tui and La, this screams of some kind of scam. His uncle’s some super important exiled general? You have to see that’s just crazy talk.” 

The Avatar shrugged. “I feel like it could be true. Zuko feels special to me.”

Zuko wrinkled his nose. Ew. He did not want to be special to the Avatar. 

“Special?” Katara asked. 

“I think it’s an Avatar thing,” the Avatar hummed. “I’ve never felt it around anyone else, though. It’s like he’s the sun.”

“Maybe it’s a firebender thing,” Sokka offered. “Or maybe it’s his so-called ‘curse.’”

Zuko pinched his brow. Dear Agni, now they were going to interrogate him on the curse. 

“Yeah, what’s that all about?” Katara sniped.

“I ran into a spirit,” Zuko said tiredly. “It didn’t like me. The end.”

“What kind of spirit?” the Avatar asked. 

“The annoying kind,” Zuko answered. 

“I hate that kind,” the Avatar commiserated. 

“Imagine someone not liking you,” Katara muttered. “What a shocker.”

Luckily, the Avatar and his friends were geniuses at interrogation. 

They emerged into a clearing where the flying bison laid on his side with a lemur curled on his head. The lemur immediately flew up and into the Avatar, who laughed and stroked its ears. Katara and Sokka both put their hands on their hips. They looked at Zuko. They looked at the bison. 

Zuko stood stiffly and awkwardly. 

Katara shook her head once, as if making up her mind. “Aang, are you dead set on taking Zuko to the North Pole?” she asked. 

The Avatar moved the lemur away from his face. “It’ll be fun!”

“Sokka?” Katara asked.

“Aang generally has a good instinct for these kinds of things,” Sokka said. 

Katara sighed. She pushed some loose hair strands out of her face. “If he’s tied up,” she said, sending a cold shiver down his spine, “I’ll agree to it. I won’t agree to anything less.”

Suddenly, there were three sets of eyes on Zuko. One expectant, one cautious, and one damning. Zuko felt his fists clench and unclench. He licked his lips. He felt like his mind was racing. “Just on the bison,” he managed. 

“What’s just on the bison?” Katara asked impatiently. 

Zuko nodded at Sokka. He wished he could make himself stop thinking. “Sokka’s deal.”

“He means we’ll untie him once we reach the North Pole,” Sokka said. 

Katara frowned, studying the grass. “I guess that’s fine.”

Zuko started unstrapping his dao from around his waist. Stop thinking, he told himself. It’s nothing. It’s nothing. He could have rope around his wrists for a couple of hours. It was nothing. Anyone could do it. A child could do it. This was for Uncle. Uncle needed him. Uncle didn’t have anyone else. 

He handed the scabbard off to Sokka, who seemed a little too interested in it. Out of good faith, Zuko even handed over the knife in his boot. 

He watched as Sokka took the weapons over to his bag and shoved them inside. Then he took out a length of rope, and it felt like Zuko’s heart was going to beat out of his chest. He felt like every step Sokka took towards him was in slowed time. He could count his own breaths. 

“Hold out your hands,” Sokka said but it wasn’t really Sokka it was Bashira— her pristine armor, her chilling voice— _If you do good, we’ll get you some better meals._

Zuko held out his hands. Damn him, after two years, he still held out his hands. He waited. 

He waited longer. 

When nothing seemed to happen, he gained enough clarity to realize that Sokka was standing opposite him and was staring at his wrists. The rope was hanging limply from Sokka’s hand, and he didn’t attempt to lift it. 

Sokka turned and walked back to his bag, and put the rope back inside it. Katara and Aang were watching him, their brows furrowed. 

“Katara,” Sokka said quietly, clapping his hand on the girl’s shoulder. “If he does anything, I’ll take responsibility for it. I promise. But let’s not tie him up.”

Katara frowned up at him. Zuko thought she was going to argue, but she didn’t. “Well,” she sighed. “We might as well get going.”

The Avatar let out a whoop of delight. “Finally! Back in the air again!” 

Zuko watched the Avatar bounce around the clearing, feeling like the world was a place that he wasn’t a part of. The Water Tribe siblings climbed up into the bison’s saddle with their belongings. Zuko watched them sort through their supplies, two moving shapes of blue. The Avatar was spinning around on his air ball. 

He realized that one of his hands was still outstretched, so he looked down at his own wrist, trying to see what Sokka had seen that had made him change his mind. His wrist was scarred, sure, but there wasn’t anything else special about it. He let his arm fall limp by his side. 

The Avatar bounced and leaped onto the bison’s head, balancing on one of its horns. The beast let out a low bellow in greeting. 

“Zuko!” the Avatar called. “C’mon!”

Zuko felt himself stumble into movement. He was walking forward. He reached the bison’s side and jumped and swung himself into the saddle, landing in a crouch. Uncertainly, he watched Katara settle into a kneeling position in the part of the saddle near the bison’s head. She was studiously not looking at him, busying herself with the spare clothing in her bag. Zuko cautiously sat down at the opposite end, leaning his forearms on his knees. 

Sokka collapsed down into the saddle at Zuko’s side, making Zuko flinch. 

Katara must have given Sokka a look, because Sokka said to her, gesturing between Zuko and him, “I’m keeping an eye on him.” 

The Avatar settled into the curve of the bison’s neck, reins in his hands. “Everybody ready?”

The Avatar didn’t wait for anyone to respond. 

“Yip yip!”

The flying bison lurched into the sky.

* * *

—


	10. Wanted: Lieutenant Jee

Thousands of feet above the ground, the frigid, spear-like air whipped through Zuko’s hair. The ground flowed beneath them like a rug of snow-tipped furs. Strangest of all, the sun still shone down on them, like Agni’s eye, watching their every move. 

Zuko was unused to flying during the day. It felt wrong, like he was committing some unspoken taboo. A dragon must never fly during the day, so says the ancient powers that be. But that was stupid of him, and he tried to relax as much as he could while Katara glared ice needles into his chest. (Zuko wondered if that was something the waterbender could do.)

The Avatar and his friends were settled and quiet now, after they’d had a very long conversation about everything that had happened while they were all separated from each other (Zuko had received a lot of glares on this account). The most startling information had been that Makapu had been destroyed by their volcano. A volcano in the Earth Kingdom? And they’d had no Fire Sages to warn them about it? The Fire Nation really should’ve taken that city. They’d have been better off. 

In the subdued silence, as each member of the Avatar’s small group tended to their own thoughts, Sokka kept looking at him— small, worried glances. Zuko didn’t know what to make of it. He caught Sokka on one of them, lifting his head and meeting Sokka’s furtive eyes. Sokka’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. 

It was clear that Sokka was taking responsibility for his decision not to tie Zuko up. He’d positioned himself between Zuko and everyone else in the group, and he’d placed his club in his lap, like he was prepared to use it. It meant that Zuko and Sokka were a little way off from Katara, far enough that she, or the Avatar, on the flying bison’s head, wouldn’t hear most of their conversation, as little of a conversation as it was. 

When Sokka was caught, he rubbed the back of his neck, and asked, quietly, out of nowhere, “How old are you?”

It didn’t hurt to answer him. “Sixteen,” Zuko said. 

This answer made Sokka look pensive, which filled Zuko with distaste. Zuko was not in the mood to be pitied. “It’s not like you’re any older,” he snapped. 

It surprised Sokka enough to knock the pensive look off his face. “Well, yeah,” he admitted. “Fifteen winters.”

Zuko’s first thought was that he was practically Azula’s age, but that was blowing things out of proportion, because his only image of Azula was the way she had been when he’d seen her last, as an eleven year old little girl— dangerous, yes, but very small. Then he thought about how the Avatar and the waterbender must be even younger than Azula. Then he realized— Zuko was the oldest person here, wasn’t he? 

How depressing. Why were the only people the Avatar could depend on some children? Where were the Water Tribe siblings’ parents? 

When Zuko didn’t say anything more, they once again lapsed into silence. Zuko tried not to acknowledge it, but the air was tense with unspoken questions. 

Eventually, Sokka sprung into motion. He dug around in his bag and took out some scrolls, laying them out firmly on the fabric of the saddle, framing the maps with his hands. “Aang!” he called. The Avatar looked back at them from over his shoulder. “Let’s map out our course!”

Sokka scooted over to Katara, leaving Zuko alone, once again, at his end of the saddle. That was fine with him. At least some of the tension had broken, as the group could focus on something that wasn’t his own unwanted presence. 

It surprised Zuko to hear how confident the Avatar sounded about flying in the surrounding area. He’d been such a lost cause back on the ground. “We’re still pretty far from the North Pole,” the Avatar explained. “If we push Appa as hard as he can go,” the Avatar was leaning over the lip of the saddle, not exactly sitting in it, just enough to drag his finger along the map in a motion Zuko couldn’t see. “We might be able to get away with one stop. The ideal location is here.” The Avatar jabbed at something. 

“What’s that?” Katara asked. 

“The Northern Air Temple,” the Avatar said, smiling. “People used to stop there all the time when they made their way north. There’s no better place.”

Sokka scratched his head. “Looks like it. There’s nothing but ocean beyond that, not until the Pole.”

“It’s also really high up. It’ll be easy on Appa to lift off from, won’t it, boy?” The Avatar collapsed back on the flying bison’s head. 

Zuko had promised himself that he wouldn’t say anything, but he found his mouth opening anyway. “It’d be better to stop somewhere populated.”

The three of them whipped their heads around like he’d jumped up behind them, screaming.

Zuko firmly crossed his arms across his chest. “Look,” he said. He tried to tell himself to stop talking, but he’d always had a chronic inability to that, hadn’t he? He quickly stopped that line of thought.

The next thing he knew, he was shuffling up next to Sokka, which made both of the siblings tense like he was about to attack them. All Zuko did, however, was draw a line down the river south of Hua Li. “There’s several things you need in order to pull off an invasion. Forces and supplies, and a way to get the forces and supplies to where you need to go.” This was information they must have already known, but Zuko said it anyways, because he wasn’t feeling too confident in their abilities to not be astoundingly stupid. “We all know where the front line is.” That went without saying. “If Gaipan was the Fire Nation’s last acquisition,” Zuko pointed it out, “That can give them a direct line to the Kishibe River, if they can manage to link up with the Western Sea. Last I heard, Hua Li wasn’t putting up any resistance. So that means,” Zuko pointed at Kishibe Bay, “the invasion fleet is setting off from Kishibe Bay.”

Zuko sat back on his heels. Sokka seemed to be alternating between examining the map, stroking his chin, and examining Zuko. Katara was giving him an unimpressed frown. 

Aang once again leaned over the side of the saddle. “What’s the front line?” he asked, as innocent as a child asking his mother where children came from. 

“Not now, Aang,” Sokka shushed before Zuko could open his mouth and tell the Avatar that he had a birth defect. “How do you know that Hua Li didn’t put up any resistance?”

“Because I’ve visited their Earth Army outpost with Zhao marching through their streets. And they did nothing.”

Sokka eyes seemed wide. He leaned forward, “But that doesn’t mean that the Fire Nation_ took_ the city— I mean, it could mean they were bought off.”

Zuko furrowed his brow. “Don’t you get it?” 

At Sokka’s desperate look, he obviously didn’t get it. 

“The Fire Nation doesn’t _need_ to buy people off.”

This brought Sokka’s pensive look back in full force. 

“But why couldn’t they go this way,” Katara said belligerently, like every second she was forced to argue with Zuko was another second wasted in her life. She drew a line around the Fire Nation colonies, past the Western Air Temple. 

“It’s longer,” Sokka said, without Zuko needing to say a thing. “And most of their ships are already concentrated in the Western Sea and Chameleon Bay. Wait—” Sokka tapped the river leading from Chameleon Bay into the East and West Lakes. “Could they be pulling troops from the Bay?”

“I doubt it,” Zuko said. 

Sokka gave him a wild-eyed look. “Why?”

“Serpent’s Pass,” he said carefully, like this was something Sokka should already know and he was being slow. 

Zuko watched Sokka scowl, looking away from him. _Ah._ Sokka didn’t know— and Zuko quickly realized, looking over Katara’s hidden frustration and the Avatar’s bit lip— what did these kids actually know? Hadn’t the Avatar had some crazy story of being 100 years old? And these were some Southern Water Tribe hicks— 

Zuko told himself to step away from the map. It didn’t matter what they knew or didn’t know. These people were just his ride. He wasn’t going to help them, especially when they weren’t even paying him. When they got to the North Pole, they would go their separate ways, and Zuko would free his uncle his own way, and they would deal with the invasion in theirs. 

“Why do you know so much about this stuff?” Sokka asked as if releasing a puff of exasperated breath, gesturing down at the map. “Our dad’s been fighting this war for as long as we’ve been born. We’d hear some things, but.”

“My dad has also been fighting in this war,” Zuko said, because, again, he couldn’t ever keep his damn mouth shut. He shook his head, as if to dislodge the thought from his mind. “I’m a bounty hunter,” he said, “We like to keep up with the news.”

“Your uncle was also a famous general,” Sokka said, mostly to himself, “I don’t know why I thought— of course you’d know about the Fire Nation’s movements. You— _you are_ Fire Nation.”

At this, Katara growled, “And I don’t see why we trust a word he’s saying right now.” She gestured out accusingly, and Zuko watched her hand point at his chest. “He could be purposefully giving us bad information.”

Zuko felt the urge to slap her hand away. 

“Hey, what he’s saying makes sense,” Sokka said, swatting away Katara’s hand. Strange, how often Sokka came to Zuko’s defense. “If his whole family’s a part of the Fire Nation military, then we won’t get a better source until we reach the North Pole. I bet they’ve got loads of experts on this kinda stuff. But until then, we might as well take what we can get.”

“_Listening_ to him was not part of the deal,” Katara said. 

“I didn’t say we had to listen to him.”

“That’s what it sounds like.”

“I’m just saying not to tell him to shut up,” Sokka entreated. “He might let something loose.” Katara frowned at Sokka in surly silence, and Sokka winced. 

The Avatar piped up, “Care to let something loose, Zuko?”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just wanted to say. Our stop should be at Kishibe.” He shuffled back and away from them, once again taking his spot at the very rear of the saddle. He never should have said anything. 

Without him there, Katara seemed to relax her shoulders. Sokka was once again stroking his chin. 

“Is it possible?” Sokka quietly asked the Avatar. 

“Kishibe Bay is closer than the Northern Air Temple,” Zuko heard the Avatar murmur. “It’s farther from the Northern Water Tribe, though. But I think it’s possible.”

Sokka started rolling up his maps. 

“He could’ve left a trap for us there,” Katara whispered. “We can’t go somewhere just because he told us to.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sokka agreed, at the same low tone. His voice got quieter, and Zuko almost couldn’t make it out. “Does anyone else think it’s weird that Zuko has a dad or is it just me? I dunno why but I feel like he was birthed fully formed out of a pile of pointy rocks.”

“I figured he’d climbed out of a lava pit,” the Avatar added. 

“Let’s keep on track,” the waterbender hissed. “And he was actually vomited out by a gigantic elbow leech, just so we’re clear on that front.”

Zuko pressed his hand over his eyes and wished he could push the three of them off this beast and watch them splatter onto the earth below like cracked eggs. He tuned them out.

* * *

—

* * *

Sokka eventually came back to his useless guard post a few feet from him. They had been in the air for hours, and Zuko was starting to feel the beginnings of restlessness. 

“What do you know about the Fire Navy?” Sokka asked him. “Their numbers? Firepower? We’ve fought their ships loads of times, so we’re already pretty familiar with them. But if you know—”

“I told the Avatar already,” Zuko snapped. “I’m not helping you.”

“You’re going to be inadvertently helping us, either way,” Sokka said with a smarmy look on his face, “By freeing your uncle, the big bad invasion guy. And to do that, you might even take out Zhao. And why stop at Zhao, when you can take out Zhao’s whole ship. And why take out Zhao’s whole ship, when you can take out a bunch of Zhao’s ships. And—”

“I get it,” Zuko said. 

“And think how much easier it’ll be to free your uncle with the entire might of the Northern Water Tribe on your side,” Sokka continued, smirking. “Best way to take down an army is with another army. Unless you’ve got an army hidden somewhere, Zuko.”

Zuko shrugged. “I’ll manage.”

Sokka leaned back against the lip of the saddle. He sighed. “You’re pretty insane, you know that?”

Zuko didn’t deign that with a response. 

“That kid over there,” Sokka pointed at the Avatar, “is probably the most powerful bender in the world. Or he will be. Something close.” Sokka looked momentarily doubtful, but he wiped it away. “Don’t you get how lucky you are right now? ‘Cause I’m 90% sure if you asked Aang for help right now, he’d say yes. That’s just the kind of person he is.”

“Are you done?” Zuko asked. 

Sokka sighed. “I don’t understand you.”

“Don’t bother.”

“It’d sure make my life easier,” Sokka huffed. “But instead I’ll continue throwing questions at you until I find something that sticks.”

“Find a better hobby,” Zuko said. 

That smarmy smile was back. “Have any recommendations?”

Zuko probably shouldn’t punch him. He’d just barely managed to get on this bison without being restrained and punching the guy who made that happen won’t help his case. “Go screw yourself.”

“One of your favorite pastimes, no doubt.”

“That wasn’t even good,” Zuko snapped. 

“Do you have a better one?” Sokka asked, again with that smarmy smile. He must have thought he was very clever, that idiot. 

“Yeah. It’s called stop pissing off the firebender.”

Sokka tutted. “No can do. If I did that, I’d be booted off the team.”

Zuko flicked his hand at the surly waterbender and the Avatar. “You call this a team?”

Sokka clutched at his heart. “That hurts, you know. Right here.”

“Ah-huh,” Zuko said. 

“Cuts right to the heart,” Sokka said. 

“I’m glad,” Zuko deadpanned, staring disinterestedly out at a passing cloud formation. 

“I’m glad that you’re glad,” Sokka fake-sobbed. 

Zuko leaned his face on his hand. He wished Sokka would go back to insulting him like his much more reasonable sister. “Why are you still talking to me?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me the Fire Navy’s numbers?” Sokka asked him, like he’d shock Zuko into answering it, and Zuko wondered how much longer until they made their first stop. 

* * *

—

* * *

At some point, they had started following a river, and Zuko knew his geography enough to know that this river must be the Kishibe. As far as rivers went, it was fat and slow-moving, at least from what Zuko could tell from thousands of feet in the air. 

He couldn’t hide it. They’d surprised him. 

Sokka must have read it on his face, because he said, defensively, “Now just ‘cause you’ve made _one_ good suggestion doesn’t mean you’re the boss of us.” He crossed his arms and haughtily raised his chin. “We came to a group consensus that if there was a chance of sabotaging the invading fleet before they reached the Northern Water Tribe, then we would have to try. For the good of the world.”

Zuko raised his eyebrow. What a load of crap. Still, this meant there was a chance he’d be able to find Zhao’s ship, if it hadn’t already left. 

“Just make sure we’re not spotted,” Zuko said. “They’ll be on the lookout for the bison.”

“Aang said it’ll be dark by the time we get there,” Sokka said. “But we’ll be careful. We’re not exactly new to the idea of sneaking into places we shouldn’t be.”

Zuko conceded that no, this group would not be. 

* * *

—

* * *

The flying bison was exhausted by the time they flew into the forest surrounding the port in Kishibe Bay. This far north, there was a solid layer of snow on the ground, and Zuko found himself wishing that he had a pair of gloves. He decided he needed to purchase new clothes anyways, and he’d do it in town. 

As the Avatar heaped praise upon his bison, Zuko jumped out of the saddle like it would poison him to sit in it a second longer. The Water Tribe siblings followed him at a more sedate pace, and the three of them had a shallow moment of mutual understanding as they stretched their aching limbs. 

Night had fallen hours ago. The moon shone down, inching towards full. A faint rumbling sound came to Zuko’s ears, and it took him a second to realize that the flying bison was snoring. 

“Okay, gang!” Sokka called, clapping his hands together. “Huddle up!”

Zuko curled his lip in distaste until he realized that Sokka was not, in fact, including him. Good. 

Katara and the Avatar gathered around Sokka, nervous energy bouncing off them in waves. Zuko assumed that they were going to come up with their own stupid plan for stopping the Fire Nation invasion, and wasn’t interested. His hand came to rest at his hip, where his swords normally rested, and found that it was bare. He cursed himself for ever handing over his swords. Well, there was no getting around it. If he needed them, he would simply take them back. 

He wanted to get moving. “When are we leaving?” he asked, barking right over the middle of Sokka’s sentence.

Sokka gave him a peeved look. 

The Avatar scratched at his temple. “Uh, dawn? Appa might be awake by dawn.”

“Then we’ll meet back here at dawn,” Zuko said with finality, and spun around and started walking. 

“Wait!” Sokka squawked. “Where are you going?”

Zuko stopped. Without turning around, he said, “To town.”

“You’re just—” Sokka floundered, “You’re just going there?”

The answer was so obvious that Zuko didn’t have time for it. He started walking again. 

He heard Sokka curse, the sound of some shuffling, and then the three of them were following him, bickering quietly under their breaths about their plans and stealth and what they might find in the port and what they might do.

Seeing as it was late, Kishibe port was a ghost town. Zuko thought that there might be something else to it, something more in the vein of the emptiness that had plagued Hua Li, and wrapped his cloak tighter around his body, sticking close to the fronts of buildings, navigating by the cool white light of the moon. 

He would have felt confident that he was passing unnoticed, but he was still being followed by the three bickering idiots— his unwilling entourage. 

He watched, and he found no lit lanterns, no candles peeking through windows, no low voices passing through thin doors. Of the people left in town, they knew how to lay low. Or maybe it was a military town emptied of its military— men conscripted to ships that, even now, waited in the Northern Sea like predators waiting to pounce on unsuspecting prey. 

He made his way through the streets toward the ocean, keeping track of the way he came, idly looking for a clothing merchant and finding one, a dark-looking shack, muslin sign hanging low over its awning, closed for the night. Well, first to check for Zhao’s ship. 

The docks had the most activity in the entire town. Zuko slammed his hand over Sokka’s mouth and wished he had a copy of himself to do the same thing to the Avatar. 

“That doesn’t look like an invasion fleet,” the Avatar said.

Zuko kicked him in the knee and the Avatar floundered to the ground melodramatically. 

Katara had somehow cemented herself in Zuko’s mind as the reasonable one— (because she hated him, which was a very reasonable thing to do, even Zuko hated himself) — because she didn’t blurt out the first thing she thought at seeing only one Fire Nation ship in the port where supposedly they would find a fleet. 

Torches were burning at even spaces down the dock. As for soldiers, there were only a few that Zuko could see on deck, supposedly the night watch. 

Sokka licked his hand and Zuko hurriedly pulled it away, disgustedly shaking it out and rubbing it on off on his knee. 

There wasn’t much more to see from that distance, and their group stepped back around the side of the building they were peeking around. Zuko leaned against the wood paneling, crossing his arms. 

Sokka busied himself by gesturing dramatically at the ship around the corner. “Care to explain _that_, O Wise One?” Sokka whispered. 

“Do I need to?” Zuko asked, just as quietly.

“Enough of your pissing match,” Katara intervened, getting right in-between Zuko and Sokka, and hissing right into Zuko’s face. “We came here because you said there would be a fleet.”

Zuko shrugged. “Maybe there was.”

“There’s no way we can prove that,” Katara said. “All we know is that there’s one tiny ship.” She narrowed her eyes. “Still not trying to trick us?”

Zuko let out a huff. “You think I planned this?”

“Guys,” the Avatar said, “Let’s just take a look.”

That got Zuko’s attention. When the Avatar said, ‘_Let’s just take a look_,’ it meant— 

It almost felt like there was an outline where the Avatar had previously been still hovering in the air. 

“Oh no,” Sokka said, like he had dropped one of his favorite sets of ceramics. “There he goes.”

Zuko dared another look around the corner of the building, and saw the Avatar’s cloaked form sprinting towards the small Fire Navy cruiser, staff in hand. 

Well. That obviously couldn’t be Zhao’s ship. Too small, and it looked outdated, as far as he could tell in the bad lighting. The invasion fleet must have already left. 

This wasn’t his problem. 

Zuko started walking back into town.

“Wait,” Katara hissed, grabbing his shoulder, “Where do you think you’re going?”

Zuko shook her hand off. He was getting tired of being asked that question. “Don’t you have an Avatar problem to deal with?”

Katara bit her lip and looked over at Sokka. Sokka did a vague shrugging motion. She sighed and turned toward the port. “Thanks for nothing, pea-brain.”

Zuko snorted and continued on his way. 

* * *

—

* * *

Breaking and entering was a bit of a pastime, at this point. As much as he hunted down and arrested thieves, he’d been a thief himself enough to make himself a person he’d have happily hunted down for money. At least Zuko liked to leave payment behind, when he had money to spare. 

Inside the dark-looking clothing merchant’s shop, he’d found some layered, off-white robes of a thicker kind of fabric. It came with a hood, and while it wasn’t exactly perfect winter wear it was easy to move in. Paired with a lower face mask and some gloves, he was as prepared as he was going to get. He’d never been to the North Pole, and he didn’t know how cold it would get, but he’d never had any problems keeping himself warm before. He tied his hair back so that he could stuff it in his hood. 

He left about five gold pieces on a small table in the back, and was about to leave through his broken window, when he realized he should probably leave more money for the window. He put down another gold piece. There. Uncle would be proud of him. 

The flying bison was still asleep, in the same place they had left him. Nobody else had arrived back at their meeting place, and the Avatar’s lemur chattered at him, as if asking Zuko why he was here. 

“I don’t need to help them,” Zuko told the lemur. “I’m not their keeper.”

Zuko found an area under a nearby tree that only had a misting of snow, and curled up against the tree trunk, arm wrapped around his knees. His breath left a white cloud in the air. 

The lemur flew up to him, then, pawing at the snow like it was a new toy. It chattered at him, showing off its bounty of snow, and Zuko felt an overwhelming desire to defend himself. 

“What,” Zuko told the lemur. “You think I care what happens to them? I don’t.”

The lemur tilted its head. 

“If they don’t come back,” he said to that, because he needed to show this lemur a thing or two, “I’ll steal their flying bison.” 

The lemur tilted its head the other way.

“It can’t be that hard.” Zuko breathed warm air onto his hands. “There’s a phrase, right? Hip hop. Something like that.”

The lemur chirped. 

“I’m not responsible for them,” he told the lemur firmly. “Aang isn’t my prisoner anymore. If he wants to go kill himself, I don’t give a shit.”

The lemur threw its ball of snow at him and it collided with Zuko’s shins. He brushed it off and frowned, watching the lemur fly away. Why was he even talking to the damn thing? He pushed a hand over his forehead, brushing strands of hair away from his face. He must be tired. 

He settled his head back against the tree and tried to sleep. 

* * *

—

* * *

At dawn, Zuko awoke to find himself still alone. The flying bison’s snores told him that the beast was still sleeping, with the lemur curled up on top of it. 

“They’re late,” he told the lemur, which was unresponsive. He might as well have told the trees, or the snow covering him and making him feel numb, or the firm packet of unease that had never gone away since the day his uncle had been captured. He brushed off the snow from the top of his hood. 

As Zuko dug into his pack and made himself breakfast, the flying bison woke up. Zuko watched it, warily, as it lumbered off in a random direction until it found some wintery bushes that it nearly swallowed whole, it's great maw opening and falling down with the weight of a building. 

Zuko wasn’t sure how well he’d be able to control that. He took another bite of his rice ball. 

He waited impatiently for a total of ten minutes, before he stormed off towards the bison, leaped up onto the saddle, and took his swords out of Sokka’s bag. The lemur flew and landed on his shoulder, and Zuko said to it, “Shut up.”

The lemur shut up. 

When Zuko leaped out of the saddle and landed in a cloud of early-morning powdered snow, the lemur left him, which was probably for the best as Zuko headed back towards town. 

There were a few scant people on the streets, all older women bundled in furs carrying baskets, and Zuko made sure to avoid the street of the shop he had robbed, which brought him to the other side of the docks than the side they had approached last night. 

Sure enough, that small ship was still there. In the daylight, it looked much older, covered in tears and scratches, and very outdated, like a ship that hadn’t left a shipyard in fifty years.

Did the Avatar seriously have trouble with this crew?

Crates were being handed off onto the gangplank and loaded onto the ship. Maybe it had been held back for resupply. Maybe it had been damaged. Either way, Zuko wasn’t interested in it. 

With his hood up and his lower face covered, he approached the line of soldiers and some working women, probably fishers, as the supplies passed from person to person. 

Zuko was stopped by a soldier before he could even step out onto their berth. 

“Something troubling you, young man?” the man asked brusquely. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, and he didn’t look particularly worried. He was fairly young, probably new to the service. Maybe that was why he’d been placed on such a low ranking ship.

“I’m looking for someone,” Zuko said. 

“Look elsewhere,” the man said, shooing him away like an annoying child. 

Zuko didn’t want to make this a fight. It would be such a waste of time. “I thought I saw him head for your ship.”

“Nobody’s on our ship that shouldn’t be.”

Zuko raised his eyebrow. “Then nobody attacked your ship last night?”

The man’s eyes widened. He gasped, “Somebody _attacked _our ship?” 

Zuko blinked in surprise. The soldier grabbed him by the collar and dragged him up to his face. “Who attacked our ship? In the name of the Fire Lord, I command you to answer!” The soldier shook him from side to side, and Zuko wondered if he should make himself look concerned. 

“Apparently,” Zuko hissed, “Nobody did.”

The soldier tightened his grip on Zuko’s collar. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He brought back his other fist, like the soldier meant to punch him. “Answer me or I’ll have you tried for treason to the Fire Nation!”

The soldier was full of himself. Zuko kneed him in the balls, and the soldier let him go. Zuko smoothed out his collar as the soldier was bent over double, wheezing between clenched teeth. Normally, Zuko would now knee him in the face, but he was on a time limit and it looked like he’d deeply underestimated the Avatar. 

As he turned to leave, the soldier tackled him from behind. Zuko hadn’t expected it of him, as he crashed onto the docks, the weight of the soldier pinning him to the ground. It took a second to get Zuko’s hands underneath him, and when he did, he pushed the soldier off and to the side, spinning onto his knees. Too close quarters to draw weapons. 

Zuko punched him in the face. The soldier’s head snapped back, spittle flying, and Zuko finally jumped back to his feet. Hand on his hilts, about to draw— 

He felt a pebble hit the side of his face. Annoyed, Zuko spared a glance out onto the streets where— it was the Avatar, Sokka, and Katara. They hadn’t been captured. They hadn’t been killed. Sokka and the Avatar were ushering him wildly towards themselves, arms flying up and down. 

Zuko caught the fist that the soldier was aiming at him and used it to flip the soldier onto his back. 

Zuko jumped over him as he ran fairly leisurely toward the trio, feeling incredibly frustrated. He almost turned back just so that he could beat the soldier up some more. Agni, he was angry. Why hadn’t they showed up at the meeting spot? What did they think they were _doing? _

When Zuko reached them, they pulled him behind a building and out of sight, and it felt a lot like that time when Zuko had hunted down that pirate, only worse, because now Zuko felt like an idiot. An incredibly dense idiot. What had he been thinking? He wanted to scream at himself. He wanted to punch a wall until his knuckles bled. 

“It’s a good thing we recognized you, dude,” Sokka was telling him, “Why in Aang’s armpit were you beating up that soldier?”

“I don’t know,” he seethed, teeth clenched so hard he wondered if he’d break something, “Why weren’t you at the _frosted_ meeting spot?”

“Long story,” Sokka said, waving him off like it was nothing. 

Zuko’s fist was clenched, and the Avatar knew him enough to barge in front of Sokka and say, “Or short story!” 

Zuko turned his outraged look onto Katara, who only turned her head away and sniffed, “Hm.”

“We did break onto that ship,” the Avatar explained. “Or I did. But their guards weren’t paying that much attention so nobody noticed when I kidnapped their captain.”

It took Zuko a long second to try to process the words that had sprung out of the Avatar’s mouth through the layers of outrage and embarrassment plaguing him, and when they did, it was like Zuko had fallen from a precipice. He wondered if he had, perhaps, influenced the Avatar in a way that he did not think his uncle would approve of. 

“You kidnapped their captain,” Zuko said. 

The Avatar rubbed his nose. “We put him back, though.”

“What, you—” Zuko had never come down from his anger so fast before. It made him feel a bit light-headed. 

“You were right,” Sokka said, with a begrudging nod. “Jee told us that the invasion fleet already left. He told us that there were about 130 battlecruisers, armed with ballista, trebuchets, tanks, and scores of firebenders. And you know _why_ he told us?” Sokka shook his head in disbelief. “Because there’s nothing we can do to stop them.”

Katara angrily shook her head. “That what he thinks,” she said. “But he’s wrong. We _will_ stop them. The Northern Water Tribe is powerful— I know they are. I bet they won’t blink twice.”

Sokka put on a weak smile. “Let’s hope so.”

“We’ll be there, too,” the Avatar said, a somber look on his face. “But we need to get there soon and warn them.”

Zuko pressed his hands over his eyes. The Avatar had kidnapped the captain. And they let him go? Unscathed? Undamaged? They hadn’t left him tied up somewhere like the meat in a platypus-bear trap? 

“You let him go,” Zuko said slowly, “So that he’d join up with the fleet. And increase their number to 131.”

The Avatar sighed. “I knew you’d criticize my technique.”

Zuko slid his hands away and saw Sokka roll his eyes, doing a mock bow. “Our illustrious kidnapping expert.”

“Why are we still standing here?” Katara barked, making a shooing motion. “We need to get back to Appa. Everyone get a move on.”

“You let him go,” Zuko repeated to himself, getting ushered along with the rest of the group, still in a daze. 

“Believe me,” Sokka assured him as they walked. “It wasn’t an easy decision.”

The Avatar was walking backwards so that he could face Zuko. “His ship’s really far behind. I don’t think it’ll make that much of a difference.”

“You don’t know that,” Zuko said darkly.

“Why, Zuko,” Sokka said archly, “It’s not like you care how the invasion turns out. What does it matter to you whether there’s one extra ship?”

Sokka had caught him there. But, still, Zuko found himself saying, “I think the Water Tribe will care.”

Sokka batted his eyes. “And you care about what the Water Tribe cares about?”

Katara used her arm to slice between them. “Both of you, enough. We didn’t just let Jee go. We made him promise to sabotage his ship’s recovery. Then we let him go. He’s agreed not to be a part of the invasion. Even if he lied to us, we don’t have time to deal with him anymore. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Sokka looked sheepish. “Yeah, that, too,” he admitted. 

Zuko sighed. He’d started to get a headache. At least he could stop questioning the Avatar’s meagre amount of sanity. 

* * *

—

* * *

They found the flying bison in a clearing absolutely devoid of underbrush. The Avatar must have been tired, because all he did was give the bison a lazy pat. The lemur jumped into the air and swirled for a moment, before eventually landing on Zuko’s shoulder. This made him get a couple curious looks, which Zuko fended off by glaring at them. 

When the trio had their backs turned, he whispered to the lemur, “Don’t be a snitch,” and pushed it off his shoulder. 

The lemur chirruped at him and Zuko pretended not to notice. 

They didn't waste any time. As soon as everyone was settled in the saddle, they were in the air. The Avatar handed off navigation to Katara, and both him and Sokka settled down to rest in the saddle, seeing as they must not have slept at all last night. Katara had volunteered to stay awake, and part of that, Zuko thought, must be because she didn’t want to sleep near him. 

Without Sokka, the ride was very quiet. He watched Jee’s ship disappear in the distance, still moored at Kishibe Bay. Would Jee stay out of the invasion? Zuko had no way of telling. 

His hand idly came to rest on his swords, and, with a quick look at Katara’s back, he unstrapped it from his waist. He had promised he wouldn’t carry them, hadn’t he? None of their group had seemed to notice it, but Zuko put the dao back into Sokka’s pack, feeling awkward and foolish, and hating that he was feeling awkward and foolish. 

After an hour, there was nothing but ocean underneath them, for as far as he could see. It was mesmerizing, like they were specks trapped on a blank blue canvas. As he stared ahead at the horizon, it felt like meditation. 

He did not know how many hours had passed before something interfered with the endless monotony of ocean. Slowly, a black spec rolled into view, growing in size and number, spanning all the way across the horizon like a dotted line. 

“Katara,” Zuko said, blinking as if he was just waking up. 

Katara’s spine straightened, and she looked over her shoulder. “What?” she snapped. 

Zuko pushed himself up onto his knees, “Get into that cloud!” he barked. “They’re going to spot us!”

“What’s going to—” she said slowly, but never finished. She saw it. The black specs had formed into the unmistakable hulking forms of Fire Nation battlecruisers, and seeing them in person, slicing through water with their sharp pronged bows, really put the number 130 into sheer perspective. They filled up the horizon. They seemed to span the entire ocean, a force so large that it was hard to comprehend, despite how far away they were. 

Katara jerked on the reins and the flying bison rose in the air, a turn that made Sokka and the Avatar roll in their sleeping bags. Once they were even in plane with the large, low hanging cloud, Katara called, “This is going to be wet!” right before they plunged into it. 

He couldn’t see. Zuko covered his head with his arms, bracing his back against the lip of the saddle, and it felt like they’d plunged into the middle of a rainstorm of frigid ice, peppering him from every side. It was hard to say how long they were inside the cloud, before Katara jerked the reins again, and they emerged above it. 

Zuko cautiously removed his hands from in front of his face. Katara was right— it _had_ been wet. Cloud cover rolled beneath them like a pure white landmass. They followed it for as long as it was, Katara urging the flying bison to fly as fast as it possibly could. 

Sokka and the Avatar both stirred from their sleep, rubbing at their soaked faces and blankets. They both asked, with varying levels of coherency, what had just happened, and Zuko told them, as bluntly as he could be, “We’re flying over the fleet.”

Both of them bolted upright. They tore off their blankets and rushed toward the front of the saddle, but all they saw beneath them was the white canvas of clouds. 

Zuko heard Katara say to both of them, her fists clutching the reins hard enough to leave marks, “There were so many of them, Sokka. Aang. I couldn’t believe there were so many of them.”

Sokka reached out and rubbed her shoulder. “I know,” he said, but of course, he didn’t really know. 

“It’ll be okay,” the Avatar said. “We’ll be able to stop it. We’ll be able to save them. We have to— I mean.” His voice grew small. “I’m here this time.”

The Avatar was here this time, Zuko thought. He shook his head. Zuko had never seen a fleet that large. What could the Avatar possibly do? What could anyone possibly do? 

When they reached the end of the cloud cover, the sea beneath them was empty. For as far as they could see, there was nothing but the innocuous waving of the ocean. But they knew there was a monster lurking in that sea, a monster that was coming to conquer and savage a tribe that had stayed relatively distant from the war. 

But now the war was coming to them. 

* * *

—


	11. Wanted: The Moon Spirit, Tui - Part I

The flying bison was so tired that it skimmed the surface of the sea like a low-flying bird. The sun was low and baleful on the horizon, casting the sea into a red-tinged mirror, and the Avatar was once again holding the reins when they were attacked. 

The ocean’s waves gathered and sprung at them in a fifteen foot wide spear, crystalizing into place. They were all on edge— Zuko, the Avatar, Sokka and Katara— ready to snap at any second, and the ice spear snapped them. The Avatar swung the bison away from the attack, Sokka proffered his boomerang, Katara stood up and spread her hands wide, and Zuko ground his feet and wound back his fist, stoking his inner fire. 

A second attack came from the same side as the first, another spike of frozen ocean, trying to cut them off from the front, and the Avatar maneuvered them to dodge this one as well, spinning the flying bison in place. 

The ship came into view. Much smaller than a battlecruiser, low hanging, with rows of oars on each side. It cornered them against the ice wall that their waterbenders, fur-wrapped men in blue dye, had made, still poised with their fists raised to the sky. 

They’d found the Northern Water Tribe. The flying bison collapsed into the ocean, and Zuko nearly overbalanced, catching himself on the lip of the saddle. 

Sokka and Katara started waving, and after a long shouting match with the waterbender at the bow of their ship, the warrior agreed to escort them into their city. They dropped their ice barrier, and the crashing water sent out waves that shook them in their seats. 

The Water Tribe ship hemmed in the flying bison on one side as it swam northward. Zuko wasn’t naive enough to believe that this _escort _was really just that— they were an unknown group of people, including one who claimed to be the Avatar, on a large flying monster. Better that they were kept within the waterbender’s range of attack, so that they could be incapacitated at the first sign of trouble. 

Zuko’s suspicious thoughts drew him to realize, quite belatedly, that the Avatar’s group couldn’t keep calling him ‘Zuko.’ The Northern Water Tribe, as isolated as it was, probably didn’t care much about world politics beyond the fact that the Fire Lord was named Ozai, but announcing himself as a Fire Nation born citizen in an enemy state was tantamount to throwing a spark into a keg of blasting jelly. 

“Hey,” he announced, reasonably sure that the Water Tribe ship wouldn’t be able to make out anything of their conversation. Sokka, Katara, and the Avatar sent him curious looks. “Don’t call me by my name.”

“Oh, _this _again,” the Avatar sighed. 

“Right,” Katara said, leaning back to face him across the saddle. “This again.”

There was too much to go into— too many things he’d said and done in front of her, Sokka, and especially the Avatar, but he’d give them an answer, even if it was an answer they didn’t like. “I’m not going in there and announcing that I’m Fire Nation.” He said it like it was an order. “They’d kill me.”

Katara frowned. “And why should we hide it from them? They have a right to know who they’re dealing with.”

“No, they don’t,” Zuko growled, and maybe that was the wrong thing to say, because Katara’s frown turned into a scowl. 

“They don’t?” she hissed. “They have every right to know who they’re taking into their city! It’s _their _city!”

“Don’t be naive,” Zuko snapped right back. “If we couldn’t prove that he’s the Avatar,” he nodded at Aang, “Then we’d be _‘escorted’ _right into a cell, no questions asked.”

“They wouldn’t do that,” she said, voice brooking no argument. “We’re Water Tribe.”

“You so sure of that?” Zuko challenged. “You telling me that you’ve been here before? You’ve met these people?”

“You don’t get it,” she said. 

“_You _don’t get it,” he said. 

“Guys,” Sokka broke in, massaging his temple. “I really hate to break up your argument. I really do. Seeing Katara argue with someone who isn’t me is really refreshing. And kinda scary. But I think Zuko’s got a point.” He slid his hands back into his lap, meeting Katara and the Avatar’s eyes. “Either we’re covering for him, or we’re ditching him. We need to make the choice now before it’s made for us.”

“Why does it have to be a choice?” the Avatar asked. “He’s not gonna do anything bad.”

The Avatar’s astounding faith in his moral character aside, Zuko had no intention of entering the Northern Water Tribe’s city if they still insisted on calling him Zuko, even if he had to dive off this flying bison and swim for it. 

“If the Northern Water Tribe finds out that we’ve hidden something from them,” Katara said, “Things could be bad for us.”

“Very true,” Sokka said, stroking his chin. “But if we give him up, he probably won’t be helping us.”

“I’m right here,” Zuko said, under his breath. 

“You hush,” Sokka said, waving his hand absently in his direction.

“Who cares if he helps us?” Katara scoffed. “We’ll be surrounded by master waterbenders and trained warriors. If they can’t do anything, one firebender’s not going to help much.”

Sokka raised his chin. “I beg to differ.”

“Then beg,” Katara said.

This time, the Avatar needed to intervene. 

“Guys,” the Avatar said, with a sheepish, exasperated smile. “We took him this far already. Let’s just call him Lee.” He compacted his face in thought, before announcing, like it would settle the argument completely, “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer!” The Avatar’s smile made him look like a fawn-puppy. 

Katara crossed her arms. “If you’re so sure about this, Aang.”

“We can always pretend that he tricked us,” Sokka said. 

Katara kicked Sokka’s foot. “Just get married already.”

Sokka kicked at Katara’s foot. “You first.” 

Katara scrunched up her nose in disgust, and was about to open her mouth, when Aang said, barely holding back a laugh, “If anyone’s marrying Lee, it’s gonna be_ me_.”

“Nobody’s marrying me,” Zuko snapped, feeling off-balance, and covered it up by glaring sternly at the Water Tribe’s ship. 

“He’s shy,” the Avatar snickered to Katara, and Zuko wished he had something to pelt at his head. 

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko was glad that he hadn’t needed to find his own way to break into the Northern Water Tribe’s city. Like the walls of Ba Sing Se, the city was fronted by a thick, insurmountable block of ice, embossed with the Water Tribe’s symbol. The only way inside the wall, as far as he could tell, was to have a group of ten waterbenders open it for you.

It took a full thirty seconds to pass through the ice. When they emerged, the full splendor of the city shone in the dull red light of the setting sun. It reminded him of Omashu, if Omashu had been made of ice, and their streets made of water— and he didn’t know why he’d never considered that there could be a city made of ice. If there were no earthbenders around— strike that, if there was no _earth_ around, then buildings had to be made of something. 

The canals threw him for a loop. At least it explained why the waterbender’s ship was so low-bearing, as they passed under countless intricate icy bridges. Smaller, single person vessels passed them on either side, pushed along using overly long staves. He worried that there weren’t any streets at all, but that was quickly dashed as their Water Tribe ship directed them to a stretch of flat ice, where their warriors and benders dismounted from their vessel. 

Well, Zuko wasn’t there to sightsee. He was the last one to jump off the flying bison and join the Water Tribe siblings and the Avatar on whatever passed for a ‘ground’, and he said nothing as the Avatar introduced himself and his companions (Zuko was Lee from the Earth Kingdom). The Avatar did a silly little airbending move where he balanced on a ball of tightly spun air, and after that, when the Avatar said he needed to speak to their leader, the group of men tumbled over themselves to be the first to inform their higher ups. 

Zuko breathed warm breath onto his gloves and couldn’t wait to leave this place. 

* * *

—

* * *

They were handed off from person to person like a dignitary that no one had expected nor wanted. The fact that Sokka and Katara were from the Southern Water Tribe drew a lot of interest, and they received a lot of questions about their so-called ‘sister tribe’ that the siblings, as far as Zuko could read them, were embarrassed to answer. 

The Avatar happily told his own insane origin story — hundred years stuck in an iceberg (Zuko still wasn’t sure that he believed that) — and as for Zuko, he happily told no one anything. At some point, a woman who was escorting them through yet another intricate and glittering hall had finally asked if he had a favorite color, after fifteen minutes of awkward silence, to which Zuko had answered, “No.”

Needless to say, most people they encountered tended to ignore him.

It was well into the night before they managed to meet the leader of the Northern Water Tribe, after hours of asking for a personal meeting with him and his best warriors (political advisors, Zuko’s mind translated) to no avail. Of course, barging into a city, proving that you were the strongest bender in the world, and then demanding a personal, secluded meeting with the leader of said city, did not go over well. 

At least, the Avatar and his group understood that. They informed, on more than one occasion, every guard they met and every servant who offered them a variety of dried meats that the Fire Nation was set to attack them any day now. The Avatar and his group were informed, on more than one occasion, that the Fire Nation hadn’t attacked them in over ten years, and it just didn’t seem likely to be as dire as they were making it out to be. 

By the time they were ‘honored’ with a feast, the Avatar, Sokka, and Katara looked angry enough to punch a fist of fire into a wall, and Zuko found it funny, in the bitter, faithless way he found most things funny. Nobody cared about whatever a bunch of pre-teens had to say, Zuko knew. 

As Zuko looked out over the noisy, milling crowd, from his place on the dais at the table of ‘honor’, he estimated that around one hundred people had attended, most of them men. Divided by a long buffet of assorted dishes, some still boiling under their fires, at the front of the crowd were a few elderly women, probably in seats of honor as well. Besides the Avatar, Sokka, Katara, and Zuko, the youngest person that he could see was the girl who sat to the Chief’s left with snow-white hair and delicately layered robes. The Chief’s wife? Zuko hoped not. She didn’t look much older than Zuko. 

Then there was the Chief, a stern man with two strands of blue-wrapped hair on either side of his face, a popular style from what Zuko could gauge. He did not seem to be wearing anything particularly ornate, nor did he seem exceptionally well-groomed, but he carried himself with the effortless stride of those in power, a stride that made him seem taller than he was. His unreadable eyes skimmed over Zuko’s table, but ended back on the crowd. 

Before he addressed anyone else, he addressed the room, his voice easily carrying through the cavernous hall. “Tonight,” the Chief started, “we celebrate the arrival of our brother and sister from the Southern Tribe.” He gestured at their table, not bothering to mention Zuko at all. “And they have brought with them, someone very special, someone whom many of us believed disappeared from the world until now.” He paused, waiting for the curious murmuring to die down, before exulting, “The Avatar!”

Rumors must have spread very far in the time since they had been allowed entrance to this city, and the crowd erupted into cheers, howling cries, and clapping. Zuko was sitting next to the Avatar, and he glanced at the boy, watching as he shyly ducked his head. Zuko scoffed. And the Avatar kept trying to call _Zuko _shy. Zuko was going to stuff ice down the Avatar’s back. Or push him into one of the rivers that this city called streets. 

The Chief had not finished his speech. He asked that his tribe welcome the Avatar and his friends, and to celebrate his spirit-blessed return or whatever. He talked about his daughter’s wedding, briefly, and about some tribe members’ successful whale hunt, which he thanked for their feast. All in all, it was to the point and not particularly long, which Zuko appreciated, because that was very much not the case in the Fire Nation court. The Chief ended by announcing, “Now, Master Pakku and his students will perform!” He gestured towards the stage where an aging man stood primly with his hands behind his back, surrounded by three young men.

The Chief sat down, Master Pakku began his set, and the Avatar, recovered from his sudden onset of embarrassment, got a very specific look on his face. His brows furrowed, his mouth set in a firm line, and he looked between Sokka and Katara, who sat opposite Zuko and him. Sokka alternated between looking at the girl sitting next to the Chief, and the waterbender’s performance. Katara hadn’t once looked away once the waterbenders had started.

The Avatar looked at Zuko and realized that Zuko was looking at him. The Avatar pressed his hand against the table and Zuko grabbed his forearm. 

“Don’t get up,” Zuko hissed, leaning down to speak in the Avatar’s ear. 

“He didn’t say anything about it,” the Avatar whispered back to him. 

“I know,” Zuko said. “He’s playing a game.”

The Avatar’s mouth downturned. “I’m not playing.” He tried to push against the table to stand up, but Zuko tightened his grip on his arm. 

“What are you going to do?” Zuko asked, making it less of a question and more of a dare. “Cut off the performance? Yell something like ‘there’s an invasion— run for your shitty, frosted lives?’”

“If I do it now, in front of everyone, they’ll have to believe me,” the Avatar whispered. 

“No, they don’t,” Zuko said with enough heat to make it a snarl. “They think you’re an upstart little baby here to splash some water around. Look at this farce.”

A large ball of water swung around Master Pakku’s stage like an overgrown raindrop. 

The Avatar met his eyes, and Zuko felt like he was talking to a wall. “I’m going to do something,” the airbender said, and Zuko knew he couldn’t argue with it. He felt like he was looking at a twelve year old version of himself, just as stupid and guileless and useless. 

Zuko tightened his grip on the Avatar’s arm again, and from the wince on the Avatar’s face, it must hurt. “Don’t be disrespectful,” Zuko ground out. “This is the Chief’s meeting.”

“I can’t believe _you_ of all people care about that,” the Avatar said hotly. 

“That,” Zuko nodded his head at the Chief, “is the leader of this nation, not some bloviated governor who doesn’t know how to spit a spark.”

“Yeah?” the Avatar said. “It doesn’t matter. Someone needs to say it.”

The Avatar managed to rip his hand away. He stood up. Zuko watched him walk up to the Chief with his head held high, and he felt like it wasn’t the Avatar standing up but himself. His hand came to touch his scar almost of its own accord, and then Zuko shoved his hands back in his lap and looked for an exit. 

The Avatar slammed his staff down on the frozen dais, right in front of the Chief. To the crowd, no doubt the Chief was entirely blocked from view by the Avatar’s back. Zuko wasn’t able to tell if any exchange happened between them, but when the Avatar said, “That’s enough,” in his high, childish voice, it carried, and Master Pakku’s show screeched to a halt, their water curling back in their basins. 

The Chief stood up, and he towered over the Avatar. 

“Do you not enjoy the show that Master Pakku is putting on for you, Avatar?” the Chief asked, tone unreadable. 

Zuko spared a glance for Katara and Sokka, and both of them were smiling. Figures that they would approve of social suicide. 

“That’s not why we came here,” the Avatar said, turning to face the crowd. “We came here because the Fire Nation is going to attack!” 

It was dead silent inside the feast hall. Zuko swore he heard his own heartbeat. 

“We saw them crossing the Northern Sea!” the Avatar continued, gesturing out with his staff. “Over a hundred ships, fully armed, with firebenders, soldiers, and trebuchets! They’re coming to take your city whether you believe me or not!” He tapped his staff on the ground and turned to the Chief. “Chief Arnook,” the Avatar said, voice still loud enough to address the crowd, but facing the craggy, stern visage of the Chief. “You need to gather your forces. We don’t have a lot of time left.”

The silence endured as the audience and Zuko waited for the Chief to respond. The Chief started by taking a step forward, placing himself at the Avatar’s side. “Avatar Aang,” he said, “I thank you for bringing this to the attention of my people. These are grave tidings, and we will do well to prepare for them. We will place extra guards tonight, and I, too, will stand watch under the grace of the Ocean and Moon spirits.” 

The Chief moved his hand, and before Zuko could consciously reason it out, he was on his feet and thinking: _I’m too far away to stop it_— but the Chief just clapped his hand on the Avatar’s shoulder like a proud father, smiling benevolently. 

“In the meantime,” the Chief continued, “we are warm, and the food is hot! Battle may soon be upon us, but now, we must eat, and conserve our strength.” His hand left the Avatar’s shoulder, and he turned fully to the crowd. “I ask of you, is there any among you that will stand watch alongside me?”

The crowd’s silence broke like they were released from a curse. Zuko watched as one by one, nearly every man in the feast hall stood to their feet, cheering and jeering, shaking their fists in the air, stomping their feet. 

The Chief smiled at them, a weary, old kind of a smile. He held out a hand to quiet them, which they did, after a few seconds. “Master Pakku, I am sorry for the interruption, but the Avatar has made his intentions very clear.”

Master Pakku and the men with him had long since vacated the stage. His thin, judgmental voice reverberated through the hall, “Yes. I believe he has.” 

Zuko’s eyes lingered on the aging man for a moment, not liking his tone, but there wasn’t much to do about it. Once Master Pakku took his own seat amongst the crowd, the Chief declared that everyone should be served, and then the Chief, the Avatar, and even his white-haired daughter walked over to Zuko, Sokka, and Katara’s table. 

When the Avatar came into range, Katara and Sokka both stood up and sandwiched the boy in a hug. 

“Aang, you arrow-headed punk _genius!_” Sokka gushed, swinging the Avatar around like he was a loose rope. 

Katara stole the Avatar back and heaped her own praise upon him. “Aang, that was pretty amazing!”

Zuko sat back on his heels with a scowl as the Avatar’s face glowed red. 

“Was it?” the Avatar asked, rubbing the back of his head. “I mean. I just thought it was the right thing to do.”

“It was a gutsy thing to do,” the Chief broke in, and Katara quickly retracted her arms from around the Avatar, holding them primly behind her back. Sokka, too, stood up a little straighter, squaring his shoulders. 

Zuko was so focused on the Chief that he jumped when he heard someone take the empty seat to his left. It was the white-haired girl. He shot her a look before turning back to the Chief. 

“A very daring maneuver,” the Chief was saying. “Using your own welcome feast as a way of forcing me to take action. Did you think I wouldn’t?” It was hard to gauge his tone, beyond a mild interest. 

“Well, Sir,” Sokka began, “We’ve been telling everyone we’ve come across about the invasion, but no one seemed to be taking us seriously.”

Katara picked up the lead. “We tried to get a personal audience with you, but they kept telling us to _wait. _There’s no time left to wait! The invasion fleet could be less than a day away!”

A flicker of concern finally marred the Chief’s face. “No one told me anything about an invasion,” he said. 

“No one told you?” Sokka squawked. “Sir,” he tacked on. 

The Chief considered Sokka, Katara, and finally the Avatar. “I would like to hear everything you know about this invasion.”

The Avatar wiped off his brow. “Gladly,” he said, in the tone of someone who’s finally having something go right after a week of nothing but hardship. 

Zuko narrowed his eyes. He didn’t like when things started to go right, because that meant they would start to go wrong, and quickly. And when things started to go wrong, there was never anything you could do but start treading in the blood you swam in. 

And then the white-haired girl told him, “You have beautiful eyes.”

In the background, Zuko registered the sound of Sokka, explaining their stupid encounter with Lieutenant Jee, and the sound of a crowd milling and burping and laughing around large, crackling fires. It smelled like salt and sizzling fat, and it was surprisingly warm inside, considering how blistering it had been outside. But the noise felt like something very far away, and it was just Zuko and the white-haired girl kneeling at this table, alone. 

He wondered if she was making some weird, twisted barb about his scar. 

“I’m Princess Yue,” the white-haired girl said, after Zuko never responded. “My father didn’t mention you. Are you traveling with the Avatar?”

“Princess,” Zuko said, because it surprised him. “Huh. That’s very Fire Nation.”

She was smiling at him, one of those perfect, contrived court smiles. She was very good at it, and it reminded him of Azula, except this white-haired girl seemed to be doing it better. Or maybe Zuko was better at reading Azula. 

“Does the Fire Nation have princesses?” she asked. 

Small-talk. He felt cornered. “Does it matter?” 

“I suppose not,” she said agreeably. “It was just a curious thing to bring up, is all.”

Zuko supposed that there was nothing stopping him from standing up and leaving. Nobody cared that he was here, and he didn’t need the Water Tribe’s help with saving his uncle, anyways. He was going to do that on his own. 

“The Fire Nation has a princess,” he ended up saying. “I don’t get why the Water Tribe has one if their leader is called a _Chief_.”

He glanced at the girl when she didn’t immediately respond. She was studying him, her fake smile perhaps growing a bit larger. 

“I guess there are more things in common between our cultures than we would like to believe,” she said. 

Zuko snorted. To save himself from having to say anything else, he took a sip of water from his whale-tooth cup. He felt eyes on him, and looked over to see the white-haired girl _watch him_ take a drink. What was she— sick? What was her problem?

“May I ask your name?” the girl said, when he put the cup back on the table. 

“No,” Zuko said. “You may not.”

“Then you must forgive me when I make one up for you,” she said impishly. “How about Surly? Or Morose? Or perhaps Brooding?”

“Hilarious,” Zuko said. 

“Now that’s a curious name. I can’t imagine you live up to it very well.”

Zuko ground his teeth and it took a lot of his restraint to keep himself from threatening to kill the princess of the Northern Water Tribe in her own palace. “My name’s Lee,” he said instead. 

“Huh,” she said. “How very common.”

“I’m a common man,” he sneered. 

“Are you?”

What kind of game was she playing at? “Ask one more stupid question and I’m leaving.”

For some reason, she laughed. She did it politely, by covering up her mouth. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m getting a bit carried away. I’ve never— well. Lee, can you get away from your friends tonight?”

_What_, he thought. “What?” he said. 

“I need to meet with you. There is a specific bridge, behind the palace, that is thin enough to only allow one person to cross. There is a lamppost at the front of it, you can’t miss it. Meet me there at midnight.”

_What,_ he thought some more. “What?” he said again. 

“Please,” she said. “You must meet me. Promise that you will meet me.”

Zuko blinked, and finally managed to ask, “Why? What do you want?”

She never got to answer, because Sokka and Katara finally returned to their seats, and the white-haired girl instantly jumped to greet them. The surrounding noise of the feast hall slowly trickled back in with Sokka as he stuttered his own name, for some reason, and suddenly Zuko was back to being a part of it, just one among hundreds. 

The Avatar resumed his seat next to Zuko. 

“Well, that seemed to go okay,” the Avatar said, jabbing Zuko in the ribs with his elbow. 

Zuko slapped his arm away. “How lucky for you.”

“You always expect the worst, you know,” the Avatar continued, idly examining his own cup. “You’re like a worse Sokka.”

Zuko kept his eyes on the Chief, who had gone off to speak to one of his warriors. “Thanks,” Zuko said, without much inflection. 

The feast wore on. 

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko paced the perimeter of the room they had been given like a caged animal. The floor had been covered in furs, but of course, they didn’t have a real window, just a sheet of slightly clearer ice, because it was too cold for real windows in the North Pole. The more time he spent in this place, the less he liked it. At least they didn’t have a door, but it would be simple work for a waterbender to seal up the ice of their entryway. 

He wasn’t going to sleep in here. 

He listened as Sokka told Katara and the Avatar that he had been invited to the special guard rotation that was watching for ships in the night. 

“They’re finally taking us seriously,” Sokka huffed. “Chief Arnook’s sent people to recall the warriors out on hunting trips.” He pounded his fist into his other hand. “When the Fire Nation comes, we’re going to be ready for them.”

The Avatar contemplated the staff he had perched on his crossed legs. “Did you think that the Air Temples had anyone to warn them?” 

The room suddenly changed. Katara looked like she was about to cry as she reached out and rubbed the Avatar’s shoulder. Sokka looked like he’d swallowed a bug but didn’t want to show it. Zuko looked away. It’s not like he knew the answer. If someone from the Fire Nation had warned the Air Temples, then there wouldn’t be anything left of them, now, but the ashes of their bones scattered on the ground. Not even their names. He’d never read about a single instance of that kind of betrayal. 

But even worse, if the answer was yes, if someone _had _warned the Air Temples, then it meant that a warning didn’t matter at all, and the Avatar’s current efforts to save the Northern Water Tribe was a pointless, suicidal attempt at futility. 

Zuko desperately needed to get out of this room. “Don’t bother with the watch,” he said loudly as he walked toward the exit. “The Fire Nation won’t attack during the night. Get some sleep.”

He heard Sokka splutter behind him, “Wait— where are you _going?_ Hey!”

The pelt that blocked off their room from the hallway slid back into place. Nobody tried to chase after him, so it seemed like they had other things to worry about than a single firebender loose in the city. 

He had other things to worry about as well. Like the meeting with the Water Tribe princess. 

It confused him to no end. What did she want with him? Did she somehow figure out who he was? Was she going to confront him about it? At the feast, she hadn’t spoken another word about it once the Avatar’s group had returned. She’d barely looked at him. 

Half of him wanted to ignore her. It could be some kind of court prank. He’d show up at the meeting place, and she wouldn’t be there, and their court ladies would laugh safely from inside their warm ice-rooms. _Look at that love-struck idiot. He actually showed up! What a dunce! _In his head, their voices sounded like Azula’s voice.

Zuko curled his lip in distaste. No thank you. That was not something he’d like to get stuck in. 

On the other hand, if she did somehow _know _who he was, if she’d somehow divined that he was the dead Zuko, Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, then there was a chance she wanted to blackmail him. That was the only reason he could think of that she hadn’t immediately told her father, and Zuko hadn’t yet been arrested. 

Then the question still remained: What did she want with him?

If he didn’t show up, then she might go ahead and tell her father, and Zuko would be chased throughout the city by a hoard of waterbenders under the moonlight, and he definitely ranked that among one of his nightmares. But he wouldn’t say it was his _worst_ nightmare. It was probably one of the better nightmares. 

That aside— if he _didn’t _show up, he could think of worse scenarios than being laughed at by a bunch of teenagers, though (he quietly admitted to himself) being laughed at by a bunch of teenagers definitely ranked pretty high on his list of nightmares. 

It was a tough decision all around, but he favored action over inaction, and so that brought him out into the frigid night air of the North Pole, air cold enough that he had to stir his chi just to keep his fingers from freezing off in his gloves. Under the light of the near-full moon, it was easy to navigate, and after some wandering, he found the bridge. 

The princess was already there, white hair gleaming like silver. Zuko checked for hidden guards or traps, and the princess watched him wander around the bridge with a faint smile. He wished that he had his swords, or even a knife. Was the princess a waterbender? Was she carrying a weapon? She must be, he thought. She was a princess; why wouldn’t she be combat trained?

Eventually, he walked out onto the bridge, keeping his stance loose enough to dodge if she pulled a knife on him. 

“Hi,” she said, smiling wider, as if holding back a laugh. “I wasn’t sure that you would show up, but I’m glad that you did.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What do you want? Make it quick.”

“A bit impatient, are you?”

“Not a fan of the weather,” he bit out. “And definitely not a fan of _threats_.”

She looked mildly surprised. “Was I threatening? I didn’t mean to come off as threatening.”

Zuko didn’t trust that for a second. “If you don’t get to the point soon, I’m leaving.”

“Okay!” she laughed. “All right! I’m sorry. I’ll try to be brief. I’m going to tell you a story. A strange story, but hopefully— well.” She cleared her throat. “When I was born, I was very sick and very weak. Most babies cry when they're born, but I was born as if I was asleep, with my eyes closed.” She gestured to her eyes. 

Zuko blinked. Of all the things he imagined that she would say, her life story was so far removed from his mind that he felt like he’d been slapped with a raw fish. If anything, he became more confused. 

“Our healers did everything they could,” she continued. “They told my mother and father I was going to die. But then—” her eyes seemed to glow in the moonlight, “My father pleaded with the spirits to save me.”

Zuko suddenly got a feeling in his stomach like he’d swallowed a lead ball. He no longer thought that the princess knew he was Prince Zuko. He no longer thought that this was some weird court prank. 

“And what?” he said, but his voice came out as more of a whisper. He cleared his throat. “The spirits saved you?”

“It was the Moon Spirit, Tui,” the princess said. “The story goes that my father placed me in the water of the oasis— it’s a pond, in the palace, that is connected to the Spirit World. When he placed me in the pond, they say he saw something rise up out of the water. It touched me, and my hair turned white, and then I— Lee,” her face grew serious, her brows sternly furrowed, “I turned into a sea serpent.”

Zuko felt like, even if he had something to say, he didn’t have the air to say it. He crossed his arms to warm his hands against his body. He was suddenly aware of the eye of the moon just like he was aware of the eye of the sun, and it shone down on them, the only other observer for leagues around. There were no guards, no assassins lying in the dark. The princess had taken him somewhere where no one would look, where no one would overhear their conversation. 

“In the morning,” the princess forged on, “I turned back into a girl, and my mother named me Yue, for the moon. And ever since that moment, on nights when the moon is full, I become a sea serpent once again.”

It was quiet except for the gentle lapping of the water beneath them. “Why are you telling me this?” he managed to ask. 

She became uncertain, eyes darting away from his face for a moment. “I didn’t think you were— hiding it all that well. Um,” she pointed at her eyes, “The eyes. The teeth.”

Zuko pressed his mouth into a thin line, as if that would make his sharper-than-normal teeth disappear. “You think I’m cursed,” he said. 

She raised an eyebrow. “Am I wrong?” When Zuko was silent, she pressed on. “I’ve never told anyone about my affliction before. My father has always told me to keep it a secret, lest I be attacked or— or killed.” She clasped her hands, a small, worried motion. “Not even my betrothed knows,” she admitted glumly. 

Zuko didn’t know what to say. If he admitted it, if he said, _‘I turn into a dragon on nights when there is no moon, and we are the same, you and I, princess and prince, like two sides of the same dice,’ _then he felt like there would be nothing left inside of him but the bitter loss of everything he used to have, compared to everything that this princess still had. He wished that his uncle was here. His uncle would know what to say. 

“I know,” the princess said, an edge of desperation to her voice, “You don’t believe me, do you? But I can prove it to you. Look.”

The princess was, by all metrics, a very pretty person, with a gentle rounded face and blue-gray eyes, and Zuko watched, morbidly fascinated, as her pupils turned to slits, her teeth grew long and sharp, at first just her canines, but then all of her teeth, one by one, until she had a jaw of sharks teeth, and her skin gave way to blue, shimmering scales, her ears melting back into blue, gossamer thin fins. 

Zuko wanted to take a step back. He felt his hackles rise, like she was about to attack him, like she was about to rip out his throat. 

“If I go any farther,” she said with her sharks mouth, “My head transforms entirely into a serpent’s head, and it doesn’t look very good. Well,” she smiled, “not to say that this looks very good either.”

And just as easily as her face transformed, it turned back, her ears going back to normal human shells, her brown human skin smoothing over rough scales, and her teeth turning back into even blocks, until all she was left with was the features that Zuko still had— her eyes slitted, her canines overly long. 

Zuko realized that he was gaping at her. He closed his mouth, only for him to open it again and demand, “Tell me how you just did that.”

“It’s part of the blessing,” she said, and finally her teeth and her eyes returned to normal, like nothing had ever happened at all. Zuko wondered if he was hallucinating. Had someone poisoned his water? “Don’t you feel it? It’s in here.” She tapped her chest. 

That was less than helpful. Was she talking about chi? His inner fire? 

“This only happened to me recently,” Zuko said, gesturing at his face, because, for the first time in his life, there was a person who _understood_, right here, and he couldn’t help himself. “I started messing with the transformation, and I woke up like this.”

“Messing with it?” she asked, alarmed. “Then that means you _do_? Transform, that is?”

Zuko was silent for a full three seconds before he coughed, “Uh, yeah. Yeah. I do.”

The princess smiled, a slow, wondrous smile. 

Zuko didn’t smile. He felt nauseous. He felt like someone was watching him, and he turned his head, looking for the interloper, but he didn’t see anyone. His mind was playing tricks on him. He shifted his weight on his feet. 

“Was it the Moon Spirit?” the princess asked, nearly jumping in place. “I have so many questions for you. How did it happen? What is it like?”

Zuko found himself leaning away without realizing it. He covered it up by leaning against the railing of the bridge. He didn’t know how to answer. If he said the truth, she would have to realize that he was from the Fire Nation, and she was the last person he’d like to find out that he was from the Fire Nation. 

He was so tired of keeping secrets. 

“Not the Moon Spirit,” he said. Zuko knew it had been Agni. The dragons were Agni’s children. “It was my mother who asked the spirits to save me. Someone did.” He paused, and then said it anyways, casually, like he was talking about washing the dishes. “I turn into a dragon.”

“A dragon!” She clapped her hands together, but it didn’t make a sound through her gloves. “The dragons are said to be extinct.”

Zuko was very _aware _of that fact. His very own uncle had killed the last one. 

“I’m sorry,” the princess hurried to say. “That was rude of me.”

Zuko rolled his eyes. “It’s whatever.”

“I just—” she sighed, “—I’d never imagined that there would be other people like me. Like us, I mean.”

Zuko still wasn’t sure he’d processed it himself. “When I was a kid,” he said, “I used to think that everyone turned into a dragon. But they were hiding it from me.”

“Hiding it from you?” She laughed softly. “That’s a little odd.”

Zuko shook his head. He didn’t want to get into it. “That was just how I was raised.” He didn’t leave any room for her to argue with him, because he didn’t want to think about it any further. “Tell me how you got rid of the fangs.”

“It’s something I figured out when I was thirteen,” she told him. “I’d always been a bit— resentful, you could say, of my ability, before then. My friends had started to pick up on the fact that I was never around on certain nights, and when I was thirteen, there was a little festival, down by the docks, with merchants that had come all the way from the Earth Kingdom. The night market, it’s called. It was all my friends would talk about. But of course, that was my night.” She stared at her clasped hands. “That was the first night that I managed to touch upon the— the core.” She sent him an apologetic look. “I’m not sure what to call it; I’ve never talked about this with anyone before.”

“Your inner fire,” Zuko supplied. 

“An interesting way to put it,” she mused. “But yes, my inner fire. I told it no. I thought that maybe I would be able to control it— to make it stop happening, but,” she sighed. “That just made it worse. I woke up the next day much worse than you look now, Lee. That month, my father told the Tribe that I had been taken with illness, and I was forbidden from going out into public. My friends tried to visit me, but when they could not, I wondered if they would abandon me. I grew angrier and angrier, and when the next full moon arrived, I did the same thing. I tried to stop it from happening.”

Zuko raised his eyebrow. “And you miraculously learned to control it?”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “I ended up looking just the same, if not more serpentine than the previous month.” She bashfully scratched her cheek. “I’ll save you the gory details, but it was a difficult time in my life, and after a while of meddling with this ‘inner fire,’ I started to notice it all the time, and how it affected my body. And I also learned to stop trying to disobey the Great Spirit’s will.”

Zuko grunted. He understood her story to a degree, but he wasn’t entirely sure if it matched up to his own, hazy experience. Well, if there was no one else to ask— then it would have to be the princess. 

“Have you ever lost your mind?” Zuko asked. 

Her eyes went round. “Lost my _mind?_”

Zuko would take that as a no. Well, shit. He’d scared her, and now he still had nothing to go on. Great. He tried to think back on his own experience at Pohuai Stronghold, trying to see if there was anything else at play. 

“Have you ever fought someone while you were, uh, meddling with the inner fire?” he asked. 

Evidently, this new question did not calm her down. “Like, physically?” she asked. 

“No, with your thoughts,” he snapped. “Yes, physically.”

Her wide eyes blinked up at him. She sounded bewildered, like she didn’t understand why he was asking. “No, I’ve never fought anyone before.”

He found that very hard to believe. “Sparring,” he said. “You’ve sparred before. That counts. Are you a waterbender?”

“No, I’m not a waterbender,” she said, furrowing her brow. “I’ve never sparred before, either. Lee, why do you think that I have? Is it because of the transformation? Because I assure you I have never used it to hurt anyone—”

“You’re a princess,” Zuko said, because it was obvious. 

“Yes?” she said, uncertainly. 

She still didn’t get it, somehow. He growled, “Then how do you kill your assassins?” 

She stared blankly at him. He stared accusingly at her. 

Eventually, the princess brought herself up to her full height. “Ah, this must be a cultural misunderstanding,” she said, brightening, before composing herself and reciting, “Women are not taught to fight in the Northern Water Tribe.”

With dawning horror, Zuko stared doubtfully down at the princess. “None of them?”

She gave him a stern look. “It’s the men who go off to become warriors and fight for their families.”

“None of your women fight?” Zuko said, because he had to be absolutely sure of the complete nonsense he was hearing. 

The princess looked off the side of the bridge. “We have no need to,” she said curtly. 

“Right,” Zuko said, thinking that she was probably blowing it out of proportion. Women weren’t allowed into the Earth Army, either, and he’d encountered plenty of women who could fight in the Earth Kingdom. But, then again— maybe he was biased from spending all his time with his teacher, June, and her psychotic girl gang of friends. “Forget it. Just teach me how to turn back to normal.”

She looked up at him and bit her lip. “I will.” She quickly looked away, and it was clear that something Zuko had said had bothered her. “As best as I can. Lee, are you— I heard you were from the Earth Kingdom. I’ve never met any women from the Earth Kingdom. The only ships that come here are crewed with men. Are you saying that it’s— different, over there?”

“No so different,” he said impatiently, shifting his stance against the railing. “I’ve never interacted with their royalty. They might be just as stupid as you are.”

Zuko realized what he said a moment too late. 

_“Excuse_ me?” the princess huffed. 

Zuko heard a voice in his head that sounded a lot like Uncle’s voice, and Uncle was telling him something about not taking a hammer to a bee’s nest when you needed their honey, but Zuko didn’t think there were any bees in the North Pole, and he wished he knew why his imaginary uncle was telling him that he needed some honey when he didn’t particularly like sweet things. He tried to mentally push the bee puzzle aside, because he was very tired. It was late, and he hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night, and he didn’t expect to get much tonight, either. 

So Zuko said, “What?”

The princess didn’t look mad. Zuko didn’t know why, but he didn’t think the princess was the type of person to ever get mad. It wasn’t in her. But she did look mildly miffed. “You think I’m stupid,” she said like she was accusing him of something. 

“No,” Zuko sneered, “I think your father is stupid.”

That brought the princess straight from miffed to annoyed. “What does my father have to do with this?”

“Your _father’s_ the one who left you defenseless when the Fire Navy comes and destroys your precious ice wall.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Something about the way she said it set off a fire under his skin. “When the Navy marches through these streets,” Zuko snarled, “Who do you think they’re coming for, Princess?”

“I think that’s enough.”

“I’ll give you a hint. It’s not gonna be the frosted polar bear-dog.”

“I said that’s _enough,_” the princess stated, fists clenched. 

Zuko let out a breath that steamed in the air more than it should have. Neither of them moved, two statues on a secluded bridge on an empty street, lit by the silver of the moon. 

The princess visibly composed herself. “When you and Avatar Aang arrived today,” she said calmly. “I don’t know why, but I felt like it was the beginning of the end.”

Zuko didn’t have anything to say to that. 

Forlornly, the princess continued, her quiet voice the only sound breaking the silence of the night, “I’ve longed to meet someone else like me my whole life. Haven’t you?”

_Haven’t you?_

Zuko let out another breath, which misted in the air the proper amount. “I haven’t thought about it in a long time,” he said honestly. 

“I see,” the princess said, eyes on the ground. “I understand. I’m sorry to have bothered you, Lee. I perhaps grew overexcited. I promise to keep your secret and everything it entails. It— Thank you for hearing me out. I think I’ll be taking my leave, now.”

Without looking at him, she moved to step past him. 

Zuko grabbed her wrist. 

“I’ll teach you to fight,” he said, without first consulting his brain. 

The princess didn’t turn around, but she didn’t pull away from him. 

“That’s fair,” Zuko’s mouth continued on, “You teach me how to control the curse, I’ll teach you to defend yourself.”

She peeked over her shoulder, and Zuko saw one icy-gray eye. 

“Don’t get yourself killed in the meantime,” Zuko finished, a tad lamely, letting go of her wrist. 

The princess didn’t look exactly happy, but her eyes were softer when she turned away again. She straightened out her sleeve. “I’ll say the same to you, Lee. Have a nice night.”

He stayed on the bridge, seeing as he didn’t want to follow her back to the palace, and in the half-light of the moon, no one heard him let out another breath, this one laced, once again, with too much smoke. 

“Agni,” Zuko whispered to the wind, “I’m tired.”

* * *

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yue: omg a cute boy who's experienced my exact same extremely specific and horrific circumstances
> 
> Yue, after talking to him: Nvm


	12. Wanted: The Moon Spirit, Tui - Part II

In the morning, Zuko returned to the room in the palace where Sokka, Katara, and the Avatar were staying. He supposed he also, technically, stayed there. He stood in the doorway, looking at all three of their bundled forms. Looks like Sokka had taken his advice and had slept the night. The three of them looked peaceful in their sleep, and a part of Zuko envied it. 

He loitered in the hallway until one of them woke up— it was Katara— and then the other two were rudely awakened as well, and the four of them walked silently down to the kitchens. 

Over breakfast, it was Katara who asked, “Where did you go last night?”

“Had to piss,” Zuko said. 

Sokka choked on his rice porridge. The Avatar slapped his back to help him. 

Katara wrinkled her nose. “And what? Did you trip and get stuck in the toilet?”

“Good one, Katara,” the Avatar said. 

Zuko kicked the Avatar’s shin without looking at him. The Avatar whined. 

Katara raised her eyebrow in challenge. 

“I actually left,” Zuko said, leaning over the table and smiling in a fake, vicious way, “Because I was enacting my all evil, _evil_ plans throughout the city.”

“Ah-huh,” Katara deadpanned. She took a sip of her morning tea.

Zuko sat back and wiped the expression off his face. He took a sip of his own tea and then promptly remembered that he hated tea. He quickly put the cup back on the table. 

“You didn’t kill anyone, right?” Sokka asked. 

“I killed thousands,” Zuko said, maintaining eye contact with Katara. 

“Okay everybody,” the Avatar announced. “Lee’s being punchy today. Everyone get out of his way.”

“You mean he’s cranky,” Katara smirked. She simpered at him, “Did someone spit in your tea?”

Zuko gave a quick, suspicious glance at his tea. “Someone’s about to spit in yours.”

Before Katara could lunge across the table and throttle him, the princess entered the kitchens, framed on one side by an aging man with a scar along his jaw, threads of white entering his long brown hair. The stranger was armed with a scimitar. 

“Good morning, Avatar Aang, Katara, Sokka,” the princess greeted warmly, nodding at each person. “Lee,” she tacked on with a raised eyebrow.

The princess looked like she had gotten the perfect amount of sleep. Not a hair was out of place, like she’d never had a bag under her eyes her entire life. Whereas Zuko knew he looked like a feral badger-frog. 

“Princess Yue!” Sokka blurted. “Good morning!”

_What was up with him?_ Zuko wondered. 

The princess appeared amused. “I hope you have all had enough time to eat— my father has requested a meeting with you.”

Sokka was already standing. “Did anything happen last night?”

“Nothing happened,” said the stranger standing next to the princess, his voice deep and measured. “Arnook has asked me to speak with you on the way to the council meeting. Come along.”

The three of them joined Sokka in standing and followed the princess and the armed stranger out of the kitchens. They stopped outside the door, when the stranger gave the princess a meaningful look. 

“Katara,” the princess said graciously, holding out her arm, “Have you been introduced to Yugoda yet? I’m sure she would be delighted to meet a young waterbender from the Southern Tribe.”

Katara furrowed her brow. “I’d love to, Yue, but maybe after the meeting.”

Sokka and the Avatar looked around curiously as neither the princess nor the stranger started moving again. The princess met Zuko’s eyes, briefly, but Zuko couldn’t tell what she was trying to tell him, if she was trying to tell him anything at all. 

“I do think now is the perfect time,” the princess said. “She has just begun one of her classes.”

Baffled, Katara said, “I think there’s something a little more pressing right now.”

The princess pressed her lips into a line. She looked at the armed stranger, but the man looked confused himself. The princess braced herself. “I’m sorry that no one has told you, Katara. Women aren’t allowed into the meeting.”

Zuko had guessed it already, but it looked like the Avatar, Sokka and Katara hadn’t had a clue. It blindsided them. They floundered in place like each of them had been hit over the head with a brick. 

Katara was the first one to gather her wits. “What? _Why?”_

The princess looked apologetic. “I realize that it might be different where you are from.”

“Different?” Katara huffed. “Yeah, you could say that. This is _ridiculous_.”

The princess held out her hands in an appeasing motion. “I’m sorry, but there’s really nothing we can do.”

The Avatar pulled himself up to his full height, as meagre as that was. “If Katara’s not going, then _we’re_ not going!” 

“Yeah!” Sokka said. 

Zuko felt Sokka and the Avatar’s eyes on him. What, did they want something? Oh wait— they wanted him to agree. “Oh, uh, yeah,” he coughed. 

“If you’re not attending,” the armed stranger said, “Then I won’t waste my time here.” Briskly, he turned and set off down the hallway. 

The princess held out an arm after the stranger, as if to keep him from leaving. “That was Manirak,” she explained quickly, “He’s my father’s second in command, especially when it comes to battle. Manirak knows war better than anyone else, and you _must _go to this meeting.” She bit her lip. “I fear if you do not, you will be cut out of all proceedings.”

Katara and Sokka shared a single, panicked look. 

“Sokka, don’t be an idiot,” Katara said. “_Go._”

“Katara,” the Avatar said sadly. 

She crossed her arms. “Tell me about it later.”

The Avatar shifted on his feet. “This isn’t right.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it right now,” Katara said stiffly. 

Zuko traced the warrior Manirak’s back as it fled down the hallway. “Make a decision now,” Zuko snapped. “He’s getting away.”

“All right,” Sokka said. “We’ll go. But we’re not happy about it. We’ll tell them that at the meeting.”

“Good,” Katara said, making a shooing motion. “Go on.”

The Avatar and Sokka set off at a jog, the Avatar looking once worriedly over his shoulder. 

The princess, Katara, and Zuko lost sight of them as they turned a bend in the corridor. 

“Wait,” Katara blurted, turning to Zuko, “What are _you _still doing here?”

“Yes, Lee,” the princess asked. “Why wouldn’t you go to the meeting?”

He rubbed his eyes and said, “It doesn’t matter. They’re going to talk about nothing for two hours.” 

Katara crossed her arms and a series of emotions crossed her face that Zuko couldn’t quantify. She ended on anger, which Zuko understood easily enough. “Are you trying to make me feel better?” It was less a question and more of an accusation, like the very idea of Zuko trying to do anything nice was as repulsive as a bloated carcass in the ocean. 

A bit ticked off himself, Zuko said, “No. That was their War Minister. That means it’s a meeting about strategy.”

The princess raised an eyebrow. “A strategy meeting certainly doesn’t sound like _nothing._”

“It does when there’s nothing to go on,” Zuko snapped. “You heard it from him. They didn’t see any ships last night. The fleet could still be days away. If they’re smart, they’ll talk about leaving traps in the harbor. If they come up with anything else, Sokka will tell us in fewer words than they ever will.”

Katara scowled down at the ground. 

When the princess smiled, it wasn’t the fake one that she often wore, but a shallower, more sardonic one, that made her words, which were benign at first glance, slightly mocking. “It seems that you are very knowledgeable, Lee.”

Zuko rolled his eyes. “How much do you wanna bet that I’m right?”

“How about this,” Katara sniffed, “If you’re wrong, you go run into the ocean and never come back.”

“And if I’m _right_,” Zuko said, glaring, “You go impale yourself on a rock—” He realized there weren’t any rocks in the North Pole, “—or an ice spear, or whatever. Die.”

The princess glanced helplessly between them. “Now, that’s not quite what I meant and both of you know it.”

Zuko and Katara both looked away from each other with a huff. 

The princess quickly masked her expression back into the benign and gentile one. She tucked her hands in her sleeves. “I wasn’t lying when I said I would like to introduce you to Yugoda, Katara.”

Studiously ignoring Zuko like it was her mission in life, Katara asked, “Who is she?”

“She is the greatest healer in the Northern Water Tribe. Every woman who learns waterbending learns it from her.”

With one last sour look at Zuko, Katara’s face became reluctantly suffused with interest. “Let’s go. I might as well use this time for something good.”

“That’s a lot more than they’ll be able to say,” Zuko muttered. 

Katara frowned at him and narrowed her eyes. “I can’t believe you. What do you think you’re doing? _Are _you trying to cheer me up?” 

“Why would I do that?” Zuko scowled. 

“I don’t know!” Katara seethed. “Stop doing it!”

“I’m not doing it!”

“It sounds like you are!”

“Now, now,” the princess said gently, inserting herself between them like a mother separating two bickering children. “Let’s get going, shall we? There’s lots to see.”

Zuko felt the princess rest her hand on his back to push him forward, and he took a step away to avoid it. The princess did the same to Katara, with Katara barely registering it, and the three of them set off into the weak morning sun of the Northern Water Tribe. 

* * *

—

* * *

The sky had turned overcast with dark, heavy clouds by the time that the princess emerged, alone, from the hut that served as Yugoda’s school. Zuko was leaning against a weird ice sculpture that was either three blocks or an otter-penguin.

“She’s getting a lesson?” Zuko grunted. 

“Why does Katara hate you?” the princess asked instead. 

“It’s my personality.”

“Ah,” the princess said, like that explained everything. “Of course.” She came over and stood in front of him. “Am I also to understand that the reason you skipped that meeting was so that you could speak with me?”

Zuko wrinkled his nose. “Don’t start thinking you’re special.”

“How silly of me.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the hut. “What kind of waterbending does she teach?”

“Why the sudden interest?” the princess asked impishly. “I was under the impression that you hated each other.”

Zuko sighed. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what? I’m simply—”

“I don’t hate her. I have nothing against her. Never have. _She _hates _me._”

“But why?” the princess asked. 

_Don’t ask questions you won’t like the answer to, Princess. _But all Zuko said was, “You didn’t believe that it was my personality?”

“No, I absolutely do,” the princess laughed. “You are infuriating.”

“It’s my one talent.”

“Humble, too.”

Rolling his eyes, he flicked his hand back at Yugoda’s school. “So, what’s she teach?”

The princess frowned. “Why do I sense that this is another fighting thing of yours?”

“I’m right, then,” Zuko said. “Yugoda doesn’t teach combative waterbending.”

“No,” the princess sighed. “Will this be a problem for Katara?”

Zuko snorted. “I don’t really know her. I was just wondering if she knew.”

Contemplatively, the princess stroked her chin. “I’m not sure. I imagine if she didn’t, she will find out—”

Katara stormed out of Yugoda’s hut like a raging eel-hound. She marched up to them, fists clenched, and snarled, “They won’t teach me! Because I’m a girl! They won’t—” she punched the possible-otter-penguin sculpture and it developed a fist-shaped dent, “ — _teach_ me! I can’t believe this!”

“Katara—” the princess tried to appease. 

“You!” Katara snarled. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

The princess held her hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry! I thought you knew!”

“How could I possibly know!” Katara yelled. 

“Ease off,” Zuko said. “It’s not her fault.”

Katara quickly rounded on him. “What are you still _doing here_?” she shouted, fists clenched tight at her sides, arms pumping and sending the snow around their feet flying backward into spikes. “I have had _enough_ to deal with without having to constantly see _you_ around! We don’t owe you anything! Why can’t you just _get lost already!”_

“I’ll get _lost_,” Zuko said tightly, “Just as soon as the Fire Nation kicks down the frosted gates.”

“Admit it already, _Lee,” _Katara spat, “You have no _idea_ what you’re doing!”

“More of an idea than _you do,_” he snapped right back. “What— did you expect to show up and have the world hand you everything you ever wanted? Congrats, Katara, today you found out that the world doesn’t _blasted _work that way.”

She tried to punch him. 

Zuko caught her fist in his own hand, channeling enough heat into his palm to make sure that she felt it. Judging by the muddled fear in her eyes, she did. He let go of her fist, and she pulled it back to her side. 

“Am I _really_ the person you should be attacking right now?” Zuko growled. 

“I don’t see anyone better,” she hissed. 

“Are you blind?”

“You’re _insufferable._”

“No, listen to me,” Zuko snarled, “Why did you attack me with your fist?”

“Because I _hate you, you piece of—”_

“Shut up!” Zuko yelled. “Why did you attack me with your _fist?”_

_“Stop asking that!”_

_“_You’re a waterbender!” he yelled, inches from Katara’s flushed, furious face, knowing that his wasn’t any better. “Why did you attack me with your _fist?!”_

Both of their breaths were elevated, and in Katara’s sudden silence, that was all Zuko could hear. Between clenched teeth, her voice quiet and controlled, she said, “Stop making fun of me.”

“If you’re going to try to kill me,” Zuko said, equally as quiet, a manic glint in his eyes, “Then do it right.”

Katara stormed away from him, hands shoved in her pockets, head tilted down. He watched her run down the icy street, a small blue form with a dangling braid. The princess was still here, and she anxiously looked between Katara and Zuko, as if trying to decide who to follow. She must have made her choice, as incomprehensible as it was, when the princess stayed by Zuko’s side. 

“What are _you_ still doing here?” he rasped. 

“I’m not sure that I understand what just happened,” the princess said, her voice uncharacteristically strained. “I think you just encouraged Katara to kill you.”

“I’m not going to make it easy,” he huffed. 

The princess had a stunned glassiness to her eyes. “Of course. Why would you?”

Zuko glanced up at the overcast sky and pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t help but think that he shouldn’t have said anything. He needed to stop getting involved. Who knows what Uncle would have said if he’d seen that shit-show. Uncle probably would have comforted her. Uncle always knew what to say. Zuko never knew what to say. 

The cloud cover made it seem like the sun had never risen at all. The pearlescent buildings and sculptures surrounding him looked gray-washed, dull and lifeless. There was no use waiting around here. He began walking back toward the palace. 

After a moment, the princess jogged to catch up with him. “I can’t help but think that we could have handled that situation much better.”

“I don’t care,” Zuko said blandly. 

“All right,” the princess sighed. 

Maybe the princess would have said something else, had she known him or Katara, or any of their group, longer than a day, but she didn’t know Zuko any better than he knew the princess, as a girl with a curse and a powerful father. The princess knew even less about Zuko. She must think that he was a homeless boy from the Earth Kingdom with a curse and a burn scar on his face, with no family and no reason to be here, besides the fact that the Avatar decided to let him tag along, for reasons he was sure the princess couldn’t guess at. But somehow, they had ended up learning each other’s darkest secret. That had to mean something, but he wasn’t sure what. 

They were halfway back to the palace when it began to snow. Fat drops of ice drifted down from the dark laden sky, collecting on the snow-covered ground like ant-beetles. It made Zuko pause. After a moment, the princess stopped as well, and she looked askance at him. Zuko caught a snowflake on his glove. 

“The snow is black,” Zuko said, and showed her his palm.

Her brow furrowed, and she looked up at the sky, where the snow stood in stark relief against the purity of their buildings, like a cloud of charred remains raining to the ground, coating it in a dirty layer of gray. 

“I’ve— I’ve heard of this,” the princess said, licking her lips. “When the Fire Nation ships come, they release a lot of soot into the air. It collects in the clouds, and then—” She caught her own snowflake on her glove. Her voice turned quiet, and Zuko almost couldn’t make out what she said next. “The Fire Nation really is coming. There really are ships.”

Zuko wiped his glove off on his pants and turned toward the harbor, where he could see, even now, the ice wall that cut them off from the sea. He stared at it for a moment, as if any second he would see it fall, but nothing happened. The snow continued to collect on the ground. It caught on the princess’ hair, leaving streaks of soot in otherwise pale white locks. 

“We should return to the palace,” the princess said, and they started walking again, faster than before. 

* * *

—

* * *

In the hall where a celebration had taken place only yesterday night, Zuko and the princess snuck inside a side door and came to stand next to Sokka and the Avatar, as one among many men in furs, a full army gathered of hunters and fishermen, all gazing up at the solemn visage of the Chief. 

The princess took a surreptitious look around, and then took a step behind Zuko and huddled down. Zuko realized that she must not have wanted her father to see her there and tolerated it. 

Sokka elbowed him in the arm, glancing back at the princess and then at Zuko, and whispered, “Where’s Katara?”

Zuko shook his head. Now wasn’t the time. 

As if he was waiting for them, the Chief stood up and took a step forward on the dais. It wasn’t anything in particular that the Chief did, but when he started speaking, the crowd was dead silent. “The day we have feared for so long has arrived. The Fire Nation is on our doorstep.” The Chief gazed out at the crowd, as if making eye contact with every single one of them. It could have been his imagination, but he seemed to pause when he landed on Zuko. 

There was a palpable energy in the air, and Zuko had never felt anything like it before. He felt like he had walked into something dangerous. The buzz before battle. The anticipation before carnage. This wasn’t going to be a skirmish in the outskirts of town. This was going to be a siege. A war. For the first time since Zuko had committed himself to saving his uncle from an invasion fleet, he felt nervous. 

The Chief continued, “It is with great sadness I call my family here before me, knowing well that some of these faces are about to vanish from our tribe.” He bowed his head and put his hand to his chest. “But they will never vanish from our hearts.” Again, nobody made a single sound, and the Chief straightened up, raising his voice. “Now, as we approach the battle for our existence, I call upon the great spirits. Spirit of the Ocean! Spirit of the Moon! Be with us!” His voice rang through the air, and solemnly, after a moment, the Chief asked, “I'm going to need volunteers for a dangerous mission.”

Now, Zuko hadn’t been expecting that, but neither Sokka nor the Avatar looked surprised. 

In the chorus of shouts that followed the Chief’s statement, Sokka stepped forward and joined them. “Count me in!”

The Chief could have been made out of stone for all the expression he made. “Come forward to receive my mark, if you accept the task.”

Sokka made his way through the crowd to join the line of men in front of the Chief. 

The Avatar moved until he was standing next to Zuko and slightly in front of the princess, who was still hiding. Half-covering his mouth, the Avatar whispered to him, “During the meeting, a lot of people still didn’t believe us.”

Zuko snorted. “I guess they’ve changed their mind.”

“It’s the black snow,” the Avatar whispered. “You should have seen Sokka. It was like— it was like the world was ending.”

Zuko crossed his arms and tried to settle his churning stomach. He didn’t know what to say to that. “What’s this mission?”

“Manirak proposed it,” the Avatar whispered. “It’s a mission to take out Zhao.”

Zuko arched his brow and turned to face the Avatar in his entirety. “Take him out?”

“Yeah,” the Avatar said dubiously. 

“You don’t like it,” Zuko said. 

The Avatar scuffed his shoe along the ground. “If Sokka was thinking straight, I don’t think he’d like it either.”

“Why?”

“He never said how,” the Avatar said, wrinkling his nose. “Manirak put his son Hahn in charge of it.”

“Hahn?” the princess blurted. She quickly covered her mouth and glanced around, trying to see if anyone heard her. 

“You know him?” the Avatar asked. 

“Yes,” the princess said, somehow pained. 

The princess and the Avatar shared a look, as if commiserating about something. Meanwhile, Zuko was trying to think of what the Water Tribe’s plan could possibly be, considering that Zhao’s ship wasn’t going to be on the outskirts of the fleet. It was going to be in the center, surrounded on every side. Maybe a group of waterbenders could sneak underneath the ships in the night. But how would they escape after the deed was done? 

Maybe they weren’t supposed to escape.

“Anything else happen in the meeting?” Zuko asked under his breath. 

On the dais, the Chief painted three red line marks on Sokka’s forehead. 

“Besides getting talked down to a lot?” the Avatar huffed. “They sent Master Pakku and a team of waterbenders out to the harbor. They’re going to set some kind of trap.”

Zuko frowned. An idle part of his mind informed him that he had won his bet, but Katara wasn’t here, and it felt cheap, anyhow. Meaningless. He tore his gaze away from the dais and looked down at his own crossed arms, thinking. 

“Go find Katara, Aang,” he said quietly. 

The Avatar instantly became even more anxious that he had looked before. “Where is she? Did something happen to her?”

“It’s both of our faults,” the princess jumped in, peeking around Zuko’s shoulder. 

“No, it’s not,” Zuko said, turning to the princess. “You didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, I did,” she said sternly. 

“Not telling someone something is _nothing._”

“It _hurt_ her,” the princess insisted. 

“Can someone _please_ tell me what happened to Katara?” the Avatar asked, exasperated. 

A warrior standing behind them loudly shushed them, and the three of them silently turned back to the dais, where the Chief finished painting the forehead of the last warrior. 

“Everyone else,” the Chief announced to the crowd, when all the chosen warriors had lined up at the side of the hall. “Prepare yourselves. Lend the Tribe your ships and your hearts, and we will defend our homes, our children, and our wives to our very last breath!” 

The crowd erupted into cheering. It was loud enough, desperate enough, that the sound felt almost physical, like a wall pressing in on all sides. Zuko did not join in, and neither did the Avatar nor the princess. 

The Chief held out his hand for silence, and when he got it, he said, “If you are willing to lend your strength, we will now organize teams of mounting parties. Manirak, if you will assist me.”

The meeting was clearly over. The Avatar shuffled Zuko and the princess back through the side door like he was herding koala-sheep. A bit miffed about it, out on a terrace attached to the palace overlooking the cold city, Zuko let out a breath and considered the Avatar. 

“Now _where’s _Katara?” the airbender said sternly, stomping his foot.

Zuko let the princess explain it. 

“Here in the Northern Water Tribe, women aren’t taught combative waterbending.” The princess nervously clasped her own hands. “Women are given the responsibility of healing, while the men take to battle. Katara hadn’t known about it, and I— I hadn’t thought to tell her. She must have learned it from Yugoda. She’s very upset, and I’m afraid she has stormed off into the city.”

The Avatar scratched his head. “You mean that nobody’ll teach her waterbending?”

“Well—” the princess hedged. 

“Yeah,” Zuko said. “She came here for nothing.”

The Avatar pressed his hands over his face and let out a breath that sounded more like a quiet yell. When his hands slid back to his sides, he said, plaintively, “Everything just keeps on going wrong. _Why _is everything going wrong?”

“Don’t look at me,” Zuko said. “Go find your girlfriend.”

Somehow, in one word, Zuko managed to make the Avatar blush bright red, and in-between the black snow that still fell to the ground, and the Northern Water Tribe’s army, and the impending Fire Navy invasion force, and the fact that, in less than a day, Zuko and every person he had spoken to in this city might be dead, their corpses strewn into the sea— Zuko had managed to get back at the Avatar for the marriage comment he had made only yesterday. It didn’t feel very rewarding. 

“W-what,” the Avatar stuttered. “She’s not— she’s—”

“Please go comfort her, Avatar Aang,” the princess said. “We only upset her more.”

The Avatar shook his head as if clearing it. “There’s no use comforting her! We have to force someone to teach her waterbending! We have to—”

“There’s no time for that!” Zuko snarled. “The fleet’s going to be here _today!”_

The Avatar flinched. The princess nervously tucked a loose strand of white hair behind her ear, and Zuko noticed that her hand was shaking. 

“Okay,” the Avatar said quietly. “I’ll be back.”

Without any further warning, Zuko watched him leap off the terrace and float down to the street below, like it was nothing. Airbenders, huh. In silence, both the princess and him watched the orange-clad figure disappear around an ice building. 

The princess finally broke it. 

“I’m going to go meet up with my father,” she told him. “He’s probably worried about me.”

Zuko waited, but the princess didn’t leave. She shifted her clasped hands so that the other hand was now on top. 

“What— you want me to say goodbye?” Zuko asked. “You want me to dismiss you? You’re dismissed.”

She sighed, as if pained. “You truly are a struggle to communicate with.”

Zuko grunted noncommittally. 

“The answer is yes, by the way. I would like to say goodbye.”

Zuko raised his eyebrow and turned to face her full on. She was biting her lip, and it wasn’t in Zuko’s imagination when he saw how her incisors were now slightly too sharp. Did she lose control over it when she was nervous? He wanted to ask about it, but the words were caught in his throat. 

Eventually, Zuko said, “We made a deal. You still need to teach me what you know.”

She managed to make her voice sound light, even though every part of her body language said she was anything but. “We had made a deal, hadn’t we?” 

“Yeah.”

“But now is a very bad time.”

“Yeah,” he said again.

“Do you ever—” her voice seemed to cut out, and she had to try again. “Do you ever think that the spirits are— are _playing_ with us? Like toys?”

Zuko slowly blinked. “Why?”

“Forget it,” she said. “I should return to my father.”

Again, she didn’t move. She shifted her hands so that the other hand was on top. 

Zuko found himself wishing he knew what she wanted him to say, because he wanted to say it. He wanted to be able to be who she wanted him to be, even if for just that moment. But he didn’t have a clue. “In the Earth Kingdom,” he went with, “Deals are important. You don’t break deals.”

“Okay,” the princess said, her voice timid. 

“Then I’ll see you,” Zuko said, nodding once in a mock-bow. “Goodbye, Princess Yue.”

“Goodbye, Lee.” She managed to smile, though Zuko could clearly tell it was fake. “You silly boy. You can’t even bow correctly.”

“I don’t bow to people of the same rank,” he said. 

She let out a little huff of laughter, like he was joking, and walked back into the feast hall. 

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko found Sokka in the palace’s armory, walls lined with the Northern Water Tribe’s specific type of armor of tough leathers and whale bone. Sokka stood near the rear of the small group, about fifteen men, that had volunteered themselves for the Chief’s special mission, and it struck Zuko that Sokka was the shortest man there. No, not the shortest. The youngest. 

Zuko silently trotted to Sokka’s side. Sokka glanced at him and flinched, like Zuko had snuck up on him with a knife. Sokka studiously composed himself and turned back to the man at the front of the crowd, who was talking about their strategy. 

The man talking about strategy couldn’t have been much older than Zuko. He was broad-chested, with a handsome, arrogant tilt to his head, his brown hair coming down to about his shoulders, half tied back. 

“Men, we have been given a grave mission,” the man was saying. “Our Tribe depends on us to succeed. And that’s why we _will._” He punched his fist into his other hand to punctuate his words. “As the future Chieftain, I am honored to be leading this infiltration mission. Naartok,” he called to a heavyset man leaning against the wall, “Bring in the armor.” 

Naartok strode into another antechamber. 

“Infiltration?” Zuko whispered to Sokka. 

“How else?” Sokka said curtly. “We need to get to Zhao.”

“Because infiltration worked so well for us last time.”

Sokka crossed his arms with a huff. “What are you doing here?” Evidently, he didn’t have anything to say about the time that he almost died. Figures. 

Zuko rolled his eyes. “Getting to Zhao is the _whole reason_ I’m here.”

“I thought you weren’t going to use the Tribe’s help.”

“I’m not.”

“Then you’re just here to rub your judgy eyes in our face?”

“Gross.”

“I’ll show you gross,” Sokka said rather ominously, and Zuko was glad for the interruption as Naartok emerged back into the room, carrying an outdated set of Fire Navy armor. Zuko remembered seeing armor like that in the armory back home, burnished and polished behind a display case. An exhibit. A piece of Fire Nation history. 

“Each of you will need one of these uniforms,” the man at the front of the room announced, proudly taking the armor from Naartok. 

Zuko glanced at Sokka and saw that he’d gone glassy eyed. 

“Sokka?” he murmured. 

“Hold on,” Sokka told him, “I think my hopes and dreams just shattered on the ground. I’m trying to pick up the pieces.”

He must have said it louder than he intended, because the man at the front of the room finally took notice of them. 

“Southern Tribe,” the man barked, cutting through the milling group to where Sokka and Zuko stood near the wall. “This is a private meeting. I know you’re _new _here, but in _this _Tribe, we don’t invite outsiders to _private meetings_.”

Zuko found himself lifting an incredulous eyebrow.

Sokka pushed himself off the wall to stand up straight. “Hahn, I think you’ve got bigger problems to deal with than a member of the Avatar’s group listening in right now.”

The corner of the other man’s mouth tightened. “What are you talking about?”

“Is this a joke?” Sokka asked. 

“Back-talk me again and you’re out of this mission, Southern Tribe.”

Sokka took a stern step forward. “No, tell me, Hahn, is this a _joke_?” He gestured at the antique armor. “If I wasn’t so scared, I think I’d be laughing right now.”

“These are real uniforms captured from actual Fire Navy soldiers,” Hahn ground out. 

“When, like— a hundred years ago?”

“What’s it matter?” Hahn barked. “A uniform’s a uniform. Stop acting like you’re some kind of expert just because you traveled with the Avatar.”

“I’m not an expert,” Sokka growled. “I’m just not stupid enough to believe that a Fire Navy soldier won’t cut you down on sight when you show up on their ship wearing _shoulder spikes_.”

Hahn’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You’re barely a man,” he said. “Chief Arnook might have been nice enough to let you go on this mission, but _I’m _in charge here, and I can tell when someone’s going to slow me down. And that’s you all over, Southern Tribe.”

Sokka snapped his fingers in front of Hahn’s face. “You’re not listening to me, hot stuff.” Hahn flinched back with a disgruntled look. “You can’t use these uniforms or you’ll be dead in the water. I know because we kidnapped a Fire Navy soldier two days ago. Their uniforms don’t look like this. And even then— I’ve used one of their actual uniforms to infiltrate one of their bases, and— guess what? It doesn’t work that well!”

Zuko flicked his eyes away to get a read on the room. Of the group chosen for the mission, all of them were young, none of them surpassing thirty. Some of the younger ones were darting glares into Sokka, but the older members seemed more impassive. 

Hahn snorted. “Now you’re just spouting lies. Are you that desperate to make yourself seem cooler than you actually are?”

Sokka clenched his hands into fists. “I’m not lying. I’ve encountered the Fire Navy practically every day since I started traveling with the Avatar. I _know _what they look like. But, apparently,” Sokka cocked his head, “_you _don’t.”

Hahn looked about ready to punch Sokka in the face. His grip on the armor was white-knuckled. 

“Let’s hear him out,” one of the Water Tribe men called out, on the older half of his twenties, and the tallest man in the room. “It’s been ten years since the Tribe has seen any Fire Nation. He says he’s seen them recently. Let’s hear him out.”

Sokka sent Zuko a brief glance, mouth pressed into a frown, but Zuko couldn’t decipher it. Without waiting for Hahn to say one word or another, Sokka brushed by him and stood at the front of the room. 

“If this is going to work at all, we need waterbenders,” Sokka said, voice cutting through the room. “Is anyone here a waterbender?”

There were three. Zuko saw Sokka nod to himself as he counted them. 

“We’re ditching the uniforms,” Sokka announced. “They’re next to useless. If we need them, we’ll have to steal them.”

Hahn still stood in the back of the room by Zuko, frozen in place, his head bowed, hair obscuring his eyes. He abruptly straightened, shot a glare at Zuko, and spun on his heel. 

“What do you think you’re doing, Southern Tribe?” Hahn said, dangerously calm. 

For some reason, Zuko felt oddly proud as Sokka gave Hahn a deadpan look. Zuko knew that, if it was him in Sokka’s place, he would have said something like, ‘Trying to stop you from marching these men to their slaughter like pig-chickens into a butcher,’ but Sokka had a surprising amount of tact. 

“Just hear me out, Hahn,” Sokka said. “That’s all I’m asking. Then you can kick me out.”

Hahn glared around at the group of men, reading the room just like Zuko had, and then jerkily nodded his head. He’d been beaten, his power had been undercut like a sword taken to the backs of his knees, and he wasn’t happy about it. Hahn looked back and caught Zuko looking at him, and he got a mean twist to his mouth as an idea came back to him. 

“My point still stands about the outsider,” Hahn said. “Get him out.”

A weak power play. _Well, fine,_ Zuko thought. He would leave. He didn’t care either way. In fact, he was about to take a step towards the door— 

And then Sokka blurted, “No. We need him. If this is going to work, we need him.”

The eyes of every man in the room slowly turned and settled on Zuko, like he was suddenly thrust upon a stage with no script, no costume, and no idea where he was. He felt frozen in place. 

“Lee’s from the Earth Kingdom,” Sokka continued, a bit smugly, if Zuko may add. “He’s been in the thick of the war since he was born. I’m sure he has a lot of invaluable information about the Fire Nation that’ll help our mission. Isn’t that right, Lee?”

In that room, surrounded by potential enemies, Zuko couldn’t say what he wanted to say, which was: “I’m going to kill you.”

Instead, Zuko forced himself to say, “Right.”

Sokka smirked at him. Zuko hoped he conveyed his actual message with his eyes. 

“We’ll bring it to a vote,” Hahn ground out. “All in favor of allowing Lee to join our mission, raise their fist.”

It wasn’t unanimous. There was a group of men all around Hahn’s age that firmly did not raise their hands, but everyone else did, including Sokka, who continued to exude a smug aura that made Zuko want to punch a wall. 

Sokka clapped his hands together. “I’m glad that’s settled. Now let’s put together a plan that’ll get Zhao deader than dead!”

This statement was met with a room of confused silence. 

After a split-second, a warrior in the front hesitatingly raised his hand. “Uh,” he said, “Who’s Zhao?”

Sokka, once again, got a bit glassy eyed. “Shattered on the ground,” he muttered. 

* * *

— 

* * *

Zuko stormed out of the armory, coated in stony silence. He knew Sokka was running to catch up to him, but he didn’t turn around and he didn’t stop. By the next bend in the corridor, Sokka had managed to wheel around in front of him, hands out appeasingly. 

Zuko was forced to ground to a halt. 

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” Sokka began. 

Zuko turned around and marched the other way.

Sokka cursed and chased after him. “Wait! Zu— Lee!” 

Sokka managed to grab Zuko’s bicep, and Zuko reacted without thinking, pinning Sokka against the frozen wall, forearm pressed hard against the other man’s throat. Sokka clawed weakly against Zuko’s arm, choking out words like, “Let go— Zuko — Can’t — Let go—”

“I’m going to kill you!” Zuko snarled. 

“I know—” Sokka choked out. 

“You think you can _play me?” _Zuko found himself yelling. “I’m done with your _games_!” 

“Zuko—”

“Shut up!”

“Zuko—”

Zuko let go, and Sokka slouched back against the ice, panting, rubbing at his throat. Zuko’s hands were shaking. He told himself to get away from Sokka before he actually killed him, but his feet were rooted to the spot. 

“Well,” Sokka managed weakly, “I knew those were your ‘I’m going to kill you’ eyes.”

Zuko couldn’t bring himself to form words. 

“I’m doing you a favor, you know,” Sokka said. “Believe it or not, I’m _helping_ you.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

“Because you’re so damn intent on doing everything on your own,” Sokka rasped. “Yeah, I _know.”_

_“It’s my uncle!” _Zuko yelled. “Not yours! Not the Avatar’s! _Mine! I _should be keeping him safe, not _you!”_

“And you will be!” Sokka said. “We can’t do this mission without you. I _know_ we can’t. We broke into Pohuai Stronghold together, and we got out because of _you! _Damn it, Zuko— you saved my life!”

At that, Zuko managed to get his feet moving, and he forced himself to take a step away. He brought a hand up to cover his eyes, trying to calm the shaking in his fingers. 

“If it helps,” he heard Sokka tell him, “I do feel pretty bad about this.”

“No,” Zuko murmured. “It doesn’t.”

He heard Sokka softly sigh. 

Zuko pressed down on his eyes until he felt his nails scratch his forehead. He decided that it wasn’t helping, and he slid his hand back to his side. 

Then there was the sound of a horn. A low bellow, muffled by the walls of the palace. It lasted for ten seconds, and then it cut out. A moment later, it started again. 

Zuko managed to look back at Sokka, and the other boy’s frown gained an inch of panic, his eyes widening, staring a hole into the ice across from him. 

“A ship’s been spotted,” Sokka said somberly. “It’s starting.”

“I’ll go get my swords,” Zuko said. 

Sokka was silent for a moment that seemed too long. He shook his head. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah, I’ll join you.”

Side by side, they took off down the corridor. 

* * *

—

* * *

There was something Zhao was not telling Iroh, and it made Zhao confident where other men might not be. At first, Iroh had attributed that confidence to himself, but Iroh had told him not to attack the Northern Water Tribe during the full moon, and Zhao— He had said that it wouldn’t be a problem. 

Oh, how one simple sentence could cost a man his sleep. 

Iroh found Admiral Zhao standing at the railing, looking out on the tumultuous sea. Zhao didn’t glance at him as he came and stood at his side, too intent on the horizon. 

“This will truly be one for the history books, General Iroh,” Zhao told him. “Just think, centuries from now, people will study the great Admiral Zhao, who destroyed the last of the Water Tribe civilization. You're lucky you're here to see it.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Admiral. History is not always kind to its subjects.”

“I suppose you speak from experience.” Zhao tightened his grip on the railing. “But rest assured. This will be nothing like your legendary failure at Ba Sing Se.”

“I hope not. For your sake.”

Iroh noticed that, for a moment, Zhao was not looking at the horizon, but at something only he could see, some future that he had planned out from the time that he joined the Navy to the day that he had received his promotion to Admiral. 

Zhao’s eyes focused back on the horizon, and Iroh felt the weight, the ever-churning power of life and death, in his next words, “Tell the captains to prepare for first strike.”

* * *

—

  
  



	13. Wanted: The Moon Spirit, Tui - Part III

Zuko and Sokka burst through the front doors of the palace and out onto a terrace overlooking the ocean. As soon as they emerged, by some stroke of luck, they bowled straight into the Avatar, who must’ve been headed inside. Sokka caught the boy by his shoulders before he slipped on the ice and caused the three of them to tumble across the entryway to the Northern Water Tribe’s palace like scattered marbles. 

“I still can’t find Katara,” the Avatar said in one breath. 

“She’s _missing?” _Sokka squawked. “_Now?”_

The Avatar spoke quickly enough that his words were blending together. “Zuko said she ran off somewhere.”

Sokka turned a flabbergasted look onto Zuko.

“Don’t look at me,” Zuko said. 

“My sister is _missing _and you didn’t think it was worth _mentioning?” _Sokka yelled, gesturing wildly. 

As if Sokka had the right to be angry with him after what he just did. “Between all your piece of shit power plays, excuse me if I—”

Zuko silently bit down on his tirade. 

It was none other than the Chief who loomed behind them, filling up the entryway, hands tucked neatly behind his back. He was armored, thick fur-lined leather strapped across his chest, painted with the symbol of the Moon and the Ocean. He wore streaks of red paint across his face, but his looked different than Sokka’s. At his side was a machete lined with what Zuko could only identify as large teeth. Silently, the Chief contemplated their group, eyes pinched with heavy lines. 

Sokka floundered as he spun around into a bow. “Sir!”

“Chief Arnook,” the Avatar said, surprised. 

“I’m glad I found you, Avatar Aang. Sokka.” He spared a brief glance for Zuko. “Lee.” 

Zuko tried for a respectful nod, but he wasn’t sure if it succeeded all that well. The Chief’s expression didn’t change either way. 

“We have so little time left,” the Chief said, voice heavy, looking down at only the Avatar. “Shortly, I’ll be leaving to join my men at the sea, but I wanted to see you off.” Zuko wondered if this was a conversation that he was meant to hear, and took a cautious step back. 

There was something oddly small about the way that the Avatar stood, his shoulders slumped, his eyes wide and questioning. He looked very young. 

“We have had so little time to get to know you,” the Chief said, regretful. “You have just barely stumbled into our home, after all this time. And now— I wish things had been different. I wish that you could have felt safe with us.” He closed his eyes, as if pained. “But instead, there is nothing but war. Always war. Ever since I was born.” He let out a controlled breath. “I can’t ask you to save us, Avatar Aang.”

Quietly, the Avatar said, “But that’s what I’m here for.”

“Is that what you’ve been taught to say?” the Chief asked. “Fine. So be it. I cannot control the destiny the Spirits have laid out before us any more than any other man. But I will not deny what my eyes show me, nor will I ignore what my heart tells me.” He settled his hand on the Avatar’s shoulder. “Son, this is our country. Do not die for us.”

The Avatar tore his gaze away from the Chief’s as if stung. “I’m not going to.”

The Chief squeezed the Avatar’s shoulder once before letting go. “One way or another, this siege will end. The Full Moon is a day away. If we can hold out until then, I believe our Water Warriors may be able to turn the tide.” The corner of his mouth dipped down. “This may be our last stand.”

“Don’t say that,” Sokka blurted, and he seemed to startle himself, as if he hadn’t meant to speak at all. 

The Chief slowly turned to look at him. “I haven’t yet heard from Hahn. Will you and the other men be ready for your mission?”

“Uh, yes sir. Yes,” Sokka said more firmly, “We’ll be ready. Tonight. That’s when we’ll strike.”

“That seems wise,” the Chief nodded. “I will pray for your success.” The Chief took a moment to contemplate Sokka’s face, the worried line pressed between his brows, and said, “Sokka— I am pleased to have met another warrior from our sister tribe. It’s been too long and I— that is one of the things I most deeply regret. That we have not been able to help those who should have been a part of our family. If nothing else, I am glad to have met you.”

Zuko was shocked to see how much of an effect those words had on Sokka. The other man looked very close to tears. “Thank you,” Sokka managed to say. “That means a lot. To hear. Thank you, sir.”

“It’s no matter,” the Chief said, with the barest hint of a smile in his eyes. It quickly faded, leaving only intense worry. “If I could only ask one thing of you, Avatar Aang. My daughter, Yue. She is guarded and well hidden within the palace, but if it comes to that— Can you save her? If no one else.” He grimaced. “I shouldn’t be asking this.”

“It’s okay,” the Avatar said, head bowed. Then he looked back up at the Chief, and he no longer looked uncertain. He looked determined. “But I won’t let it come to that. No one’s going to get hurt. I’m here. I can— I can stop it.”

“Avatar Aang,” the Chief said gravely, “there’s nothing that can stop this. Not now. It’s already too late.”

The Avatar curled his mouth into a determined little frown. Zuko didn’t like that, and he frowned himself. 

“Watch me,” the Avatar said, and he bowed to the Chief, holding a flat palm over the fist of his other hand. “I’m going to take out every single one of those one hundred and thirty ships.”

The Chief’s frown turned slightly confused, and the Avatar straightened his back, and started to head off down the terrace, his pace heavy and measured, which, by itself, threw Zuko for a loop. 

He realized two things in quick succession. 

The Avatar was going to do something stupid.

The Avatar was going to do something _really_ stupid.

Zuko thought he could recognize the exact moment where Sokka realized it, too, and maybe even something else, because he took a stunted step after the Avatar, but it was Zuko who launched himself into a run, his swords bouncing against his hip. 

“Zu— Lee!” Sokka yelled after him. 

“I’ve got it!” Zuko yelled back. 

The Avatar slid down the side of the terrace to reach the street level, only stopping when he realized that Zuko was on his tail. 

“Don’t try to stop me,” the Avatar told him, and Zuko knew that he couldn’t argue with him, because there wasn’t really any arguing with Aang, as infuriating as it was. Zuko couldn’t help but be reminded of himself. 

“What are you going to do?” Zuko asked, voice dipping into threatening. 

The Avatar took off in a jog and Zuko was once again forced to follow him as he headed toward another terrace, this one on a lower level of the palace. Ice pillars held up the massive form of the pristine ice structure, and they threaded through them, heading towards a gigantic inner chamber lined with shelves and sacks of miscellaneous grain— and grass, mysteriously, where the Avatar’s flying bison was lying snuggly like a particularly sleepy cloud. 

“Appa,” the Avatar greeted somberly. “It’s time to fight, buddy.”

The great beast slowly lumbered to its feet. It shook its fur, dislodging stray pieces of hay. The Avatar gently rested his palm on the bison’s snout and didn’t say anything else. 

“Aang,” Zuko said. “You didn’t see them. One hundred and thirty ships can fill the whole horizon.”

“I have to try,” the Avatar said. It was edged with such a quiet desperation, like a man clinging to a thread. Like Zuko clinging to a life that was torn away from him at the tender age of thirteen. 

“You’re such an idiot,” Zuko snarled. 

The Avatar turned to give him a look. “And here I thought you were trying to be nice.”

Zuko bit back whatever he had to say to that. “Let’s just get this over with.”

The Avatar raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”

“Get on already. I’m done with waiting around.”

Obligingly, the Avatar floated to the top of the flying bison’s head and pulled his staff out of the bison’s saddle. “That eager to get rid of me?”

Zuko trudged forward and climbed up the side of the flying bison, which was made more difficult because it was standing. He leaped to get a hold of the side of the saddle, and swung himself up and into it. 

“If I was that eager to get rid of you, I never would have kidnapped you,” Zuko said. 

The Avatar stared at him blankly. “What are you doing?”

“If you’re any good, we might be able to reach Zhao’s ship.”

“We?” the Avatar asked. 

Zuko looked the Avatar dead in the eyes. “Are you going to fly this thing or not?”

“This _thing _has a name. It’s Appa. And I still don’t know what you’re doing. I’m not dropping you off somewhere.”

Zuko gritted his teeth. “You’re going to go attack the fleet, right? Well, I’ll follow you. Just don’t get pissy at me when the blood starts flowing.”

The Avatar tightened his grip on his staff. “I thought you weren’t going to help me.”

“Frost it all, airbender,” Zuko snarled. “It’s called killing two birds with one sword.” 

“I don’t think that’s the right phrase.”

“Shut up!”

“I also don’t think it means what you think it means.”

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. The thought passed through his mind to leave the Avatar alone to his stupid suicidal mission, but then the Avatar said, “Let’s go, Appa. Yip yip.”

The flying bison started walking towards the exit. 

Zuko slid his hand off his face. 

“Glad to have you with me, Zuko,” the Avatar said timidly, now fully turned away from him, hands holding the reins. “I think I’d be a lot more scared right now if you weren’t.”

“Give it a few minutes,” Zuko muttered. “I’m sure it’ll come back.”

* * *

—

* * *

From above, the Northern Water Tribe’s city looked stained, like the snow-filled soot had poisoned its pristine, glittering walls. It wasn’t the same city Zuko had walked in on. A part of Zuko wondered if he was the cause— trouble followed him like a dark cloud. But that was stupid. Zuko couldn’t have prevented this any more than he had caused it. 

And who had caused it, he found himself wondering, as if this was bounty hunting, and there was a single man who he could turn in to the Earth Army, and suddenly everything would be wrapped up in a neat little bow. Who would it be on that wanted poster? Some nameless War Minister? The cockroach himself, Zhao? Or was it Zuko, for not killing Zhao when he had the chance? 

He could see figures dashing down the streets, but from above, he couldn’t tell if they were school children being rushed to safety or warriors rushing off to get burned alive. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Zuko had been in Earth Kingdom towns that had been ransacked by the Fire Nation before. Some towns, like Cao, had given up. There were many others that hadn’t. In those small fleeing figures, Zuko saw the Earth Kingdom civilians that had sobbed at the ashes of what had once been their homes. But Zuko supposed that these peoples’ homes couldn’t burn.

He wondered what it would look like. There wouldn’t be any burning fields, but there would still be bodies. Lines of prisoners carted off in chains. But now they would be wearing blue. 

Agni, was that all the difference?

The flying bison crested the towering ice wall that cut the city off from the sea. At its base laid rows of the Water Tribe’s warships, those low-hanging boats lined with oars. Further out into the bay, there were smaller ships, armed with no more than five men. Zuko watched as a single flick of a man’s wrist skimmed their vessel across a wave. Waterbenders. 

The flying bison left it behind them, skimming over the Northern Water Tribe’s paltry army like it was dust beneath their feet. Zuko and the Avatar’s eyes pointed forward, searching the horizon for that speck of black. And, suddenly, there it was. The dark form of a single battlecruiser took shape against the sea, plume of smoke snaking up into the cloud cover. It was alone. It didn’t seem to be plowing forward so much as idling in place. Waiting. Watching. It was on the smaller side, on par with Lieutenant Jee’s ship. 

Zuko crouched at the head of the saddle so that he could shout into the Avatar’s ear. 

“That’s a scout ship!” he said. 

The Avatar had a firm grip on his staff. He, too, rose into an uneasy crouch on the bison’s head, prepared to leap at a moment’s notice. “Easy.”

Zuko pulled up his lower face mask to better shield against the wind. The reality of the situation was pressing in on him more than he had expected. Zuko often found himself thrown into trouble, battling against odds that should’ve made him dead long ago. But this— this was something else. It felt less like something Zuko had chosen to do, and more like something he was falling into (_why couldn’t he leave Aang alone to die?_), and it made him feel slightly sick. In those tense moments as the flying bison coursed towards the battlecruiser, Zuko tried to pin down why the idea of battle— something as common to him as breathing— was making him feel that way.

_Oh_, Zuko realized. In his mind, he imagined himself in Fire Navy armor. He imagined looking up at the Avatar’s flying bison and thinking of ways to take it down. 

He didn’t want to kill Fire Nation soldiers just for serving on this ship. 

“Aang,” Zuko said to the Avatar’s back, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I have to do this,” the Avatar said. 

That, at least, was something that Zuko could understand. 

The flying bison landed on the battlecruiser, its great paws sounding out a heavy thunk against the metal of the ship, its weight dunking the small battlecruiser a foot deeper into the ocean, bouncing the soldiers lining its railings. 

The Avatar leaped, and Zuko had time for one last thought before he launched himself at the throat of one of the spearmen lined up around the bison, and the thought was:

_Not like I’d ever had a choice. _

One of his swords slid neatly into the slit at the top of the spearman’s gorget, and the other deflected another soldier’s stab at Zuko’s side. When Zuko ripped his dao out of the man’s throat, never pausing for a second, a spray of red dripped down onto his white gloved hand. He dove over the downed man’s body before it even reached the deck, nimbly dodging the three swipes at his back, slicing clean through one man’s greave hard enough to leave the man’s bone exposed, the man crying out, dropping his spear to clutch at his arm as more blood gushed out onto the scout ship’s deck. 

That left five spearmen directly surrounding Zuko. Distantly, Zuko registered the sound of crashing metal, the thunder-clapping of air, an unnatural wind that fluttered Zuko’s hood, but that was all to Zuko’s back— that was the Avatar’s side. This was Zuko’s side. And five spearmen was nothing. 

As one spearman dove forward, Zuko forced his hand to aim too high, and that made it easy to slink in low and kick the spearman solidly enough in the breastplate to be flung five feet backwards into the accommodation of the ship. He caught the next swipe between the cross of his dao, and spun to twist his spear right out of his grip. Zuko stabbed that soldier in the gap right below the bottom of his breastplate, and Zuko heard the man gasp wetly. Zuko ripped his blade out again, grabbed him by the gorget, and flipped his body over Zuko’s shoulder straight at the three other spearmen. 

Two spearmen dove to the side, but the third didn’t, and that one remained pinned under the body. Zuko leaped at the one who dove to the right and swung both his swords down at the top of his knee, and the soldier screamed as his leg came clean off. 

Zuko dropped into a low roll to dodge the swing of a soldier with a scimitar and came back to his feet with his back against the railing. The swordsman wasn’t wearing his helmet, and Zuko clearly saw his face for what it was— hair a lighter brown, unshaven, thirties or early forties. The swordsman ran at Zuko, eyes wild but with a firm grip on the hilt of his sword.

Zuko would have said he was skilled, but the other man didn’t last three seconds before Zuko clawed a strike against his chest that sent him reeling. Zuko leant back against the railing to launch himself into a double kick that shot the other man straight to the deck with a crunch that wasn’t only breaking metal. 

Two more spearmen ran at him, and Zuko calmly ducked their fevered jabs, grabbed their spears, and tore them both clear over the railing. 

Zuko came back into a ready stance, dao outstretched before him, and was momentarily surprised with no one swung at him with a bladed weapon. He allowed himself to scan the deck, taking in the bodies strewn over Zuko’s side and the broken trebuchets and chained up soldiers on the Avatar’s side— but where was the Avatar? Where was the flying bison?

Zuko felt the wind change direction, and it made him look out over the railing to the sea. He didn’t hesitate to jump to the top of the railing, running along the top of it to gain momentum before he leaped, swords still out at each side, clear through ten feet of air, before landing neatly in the flying bison’s saddle, rolling to distribute the force. The flying bison finished its sweep by the ship, and abruptly turned to gain altitude. 

Zuko wasn’t even out of breath. He crouched over to where the Avatar sat tensed on the bison’s head. The Avatar was breathing hard, but then again, Zuko assumed he had done most of the work. 

“One down,” the Avatar said. 

“No counting,” Zuko growled. “Don’t turn this into a game.”

The Avatar managed to tear his gaze over to look at Zuko, and his eyes widened. “Are you hurt?” he asked. 

“No,” Zuko said. “You?”

“There’s blood on you,” the Avatar told him. 

“It’s not mine.”

The Avatar abruptly turned away from him. 

Zuko studied the back of his bald head, the tense line of his shoulders, trying to see if the Avatar had been injured, but there didn’t seem to be any blood on him. He seemed fine, or as fine as he could be. 

Zuko’s gaze was drawn back to the sea below them, and he saw it again. Zhao’s fleet. They were much closer to it now than they had been flying over it a few days ago— and now he could see individual ships. He could see the trebuchets, the tanks, the soldiers lining the forecastle— far more men then he had seen back on the scout ship. And there wasn’t just one battlecruiser. There were over a hundred. Zuko couldn’t see where they ended— only the line where they began. 

The Avatar’s shoulders scrunched up towards his ears. 

Zuko didn’t say anything. The wind whipped past them. It was quiet, up in the air where they flew. There was only the sound of the ocean. It was strange how so many ships could make so little sound from so high up. 

“Hey, Zuko?” the Avatar asked. Zuko had to lean over the saddle to be able to hear him at all. His words were directed out at the sea. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Zuko pressed his mouth into a line. 

“There’s so many of them,” the Avatar whispered. “There’s only one me. I don’t know if I can do this. Zuko—”

The Avatar wanted him to say something, so Zuko said, “Shut up.”

That made the Avatar finally turn and look at him. 

“You think it’s impossible,” Zuko spat. “You’re looking at that fleet and seeing yourself fail. Get a spirit-damned grip. Shit starts being impossible the second you think it is. This was _your_ frosted idea,” Zuko reached out and flicked the Avatar straight between the eyes. “If you give up now, I’m going to tie you to a tree and leave you to die.”

The Avatar gingerly rubbed his forehead. 

“This isn’t the Earth Kingdom,” the Avatar told him. 

“Then I’ll tie you up in an ice cave,” Zuko growled, clenching his fists. “It doesn’t _matter _how I’m threatening to kill you, Aang, for Agni’s sake!”

For some reason, the Avatar brought the corner of his mouth up in a half-smile. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter.” He looked down at the hand gripping his staff, and then out at the fleet below them. “I said I would take them all out. I— can’t give up now. It has to be possible. I’m the Avatar. I’m the Avatar. I’m the—”

Three balls of fire came rocketing straight at them. 

“Take the reins!” the Avatar said, and then jumped straight off the flying bison. 

Wide-eyed, Zuko watched him sink towards the ocean, arms and legs pinned to his sides. Zuko jerkily hopped onto the bison's head, picking up the reins. 

“What am I supposed to do with this!” Zuko hissed to himself. 

He watched the Avatar approach the three flaming projectiles, and, at the last second, spread his arms and legs, tightly grip his staff over his head, and then swing it soundly across at all three rocks. A low boom shook the air, like Zuko was thrown into a thundercloud, and the air felt displaced, tugging at his clothes. 

All three balls of fire went careening right back at the ships that shot them. 

Zuko didn’t have to do anything. The bison seemed to know exactly where to go to perfectly capture the Avatar in its saddle, and the Avatar tumbled into a roll inside. He quickly sprung back to his feet and hopped onto the bison’s head, holding onto Zuko’s shoulder for balance. The Avatar pointed down at one battlecruiser that the projectile had squarely hit— a flaming mass torn through metal and bodies.

“We’ll call that number two,” the Avatar panted. 

Zuko took a solid moment to come to terms with the overwhelming amount of power held within the Avatar’s tiny body, and realized very quickly that it was something he was not going to be able to do, not even in a million solid moments. 

“We’re not counting,” Zuko grunted instead. 

* * *

—

* * *

“That was number three,” the Avatar panted at Zuko’s back, but Zuko didn’t have time to focus on whatever ship the Avatar was talking about, too busy fending off the sword of just one of the rings of soldiers surrounding him and the Avatar. They had somehow ended back to back, the Avatar brandishing his staff, Zuko, as always, clutching his dual dao. 

Zuko knocked back the sword pressing down at him and swiped back at the soldier, but he side-stepped out of the way. 

Two soldiers on either side of the swordsman were brandishing their fists in a maneuver Zuko was waiting for. 

“Get ready to jump!” Zuko barked. 

The firebenders let loose their streams of flame. 

The Avatar jumped. 

Zuko kicked out his own stream of flame, landing on one hand and using it to spin in a full circle, whipping up a cyclone of flame with Zuko and the Avatar at its heart. 

The Avatar, on his descent, pushed out his hands, and the cyclone of flame swept out onto the deck of the ship, flowing over the ring of soldiers who tried to scramble to safety, over the firebenders who punched out at the encroaching flames with their own, and at swordsmen who dived clear off into the sea. 

The Avatar landed on top of Zuko’s back, slamming Zuko’s face straight into the metal of the ship’s deck. 

“Hah!” the Avatar cheered. “We did it!”

Zuko pushed himself up with his hands, the Avatar still sitting on his back, and growled, “I hate you.”

The Avatar finally slid off him, rested his hand on Zuko’s head for a moment, for whatever reason the airbender had, and then the two of them quickly separated— Zuko to clean up the firebenders snuffing out the flames on their armor, and the Avatar to dunk the ship’s tanks into the ocean. 

One firebender was so busy with putting out the fire that had caught on the tapestry proudly bearing the Fire Nation insignia that he didn’t even notice the sword that Zuko had sunk into his back before he coughed his own blood onto the tapestry he so ardently tried to save. And nobody would notice the small flecks of the soldier’s blood for years to come— it was all red, after all. 

* * *

—

* * *

“Six,” the Avatar grunted to him as Zuko crawled up onto the flying bison’s saddle. Zuko had nearly missed the bison altogether— he was seconds away from sailing straight into the frigid sea before he’d managed to catch some of the bison’s fur. His hands were growing slippery. His gloves no longer looked white. The blood was no longer only somebody else's. 

The first thing Zuko noticed was the way the Avatar was sitting, hunched over. 

“You’re hurt,” Zuko said. 

“It doesn’t matter,” the Avatar said. “I’m okay. You're hurt a lot worse than me.”

Zuko stormed over to the Avatar and grabbed his shoulder, twisting him around. It was the boy’s left arm that was beading with blood. His bracer had been sliced down the middle. 

The Avatar quickly jerked his shoulder out of Zuko’s grip. “The next ship is coming up.”

They would be over the next ship in less than a minute. Wait any longer, and they would have to deal with trebuchet fire. Zuko hated to think that they were getting used to this.

“Can you move?” Zuko demanded. 

“Yes,” the Avatar said, without looking at him. 

Zuko grabbed his shoulder with one hand and the Avatar’s chin with the other. Zuko looked straight into the Avatar’s wide grey eyes. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”

Zuko felt the Avatar freeze like a captured rabaroo, before slowly nodding. “I can move.”

Zuko let him go. He took a step back in the saddle. He rested his hands on his hilts, eyes on the large battlecruiser, knowing that the battlecruiser had eyes on them. 

Suddenly, a loud grinding noise pervaded over the bay. The line of battlecruisers had never stopped accelerating towards the Northern Water Tribe, but now they came to a stuttering, shaking halt inside the bay. 

Zuko shared a startled look with the Avatar. Instead of landing, the Avatar pulled their bison up and in a loop, circling the sky overhead. Desperately, Zuko searched the sea below. 

The Northern Water Tribe’s ice wall and insignia were clearly visible from here, but Zuko didn’t think that the battlecruisers had grown close enough to be at a good firing distance. Then why were they stopping?

“Look, Zuko!” the Avatar called, pointing down at the battlecruiser. 

Zuko squinted downward, searching, until he thought he saw what the Avatar was talking about. 

Ice. More specifically, a line of ice drawn out parallel to the shore of the Northern Water Tribe. Zuko followed the line with his eyes, and he saw battlecruisers all across the bay grinding up against the line of ice. It momentarily baffled him until he remembered— the Northern Water Tribe had laid traps down in the sea. Could this be the trap?

The battlecruisers beyond the front row were quickly advancing, maneuvering themselves between the ships halted in the front. 

“Water Tribe!” the Avatar called. “It’s their ships!” 

Zuko looked away from the front line of battlecruisers, and saw the Northern Water Tribe’s ships slinking through the sea. It struck Zuko that they were moving incredibly fast— was that because of waterbenders, or was it because of something else? No, it couldn’t be because of waterbenders, because there were those smaller ships as well, without oars, and these moved fastest of all. 

From their high vantage point, Zuko and the Avatar watched the Northern Water Tribe board the ship that they were about to board themselves. They watched those small waterbender ships dart around the battlecruiser’s enormous hull, whipping up huge spikes of ice, until the battlecruiser was suspended over the sea in an icy prison. 

“Yes!” the Avatar cheered, laughing. “They can do this!” 

Zuko’s eyes quickly drew back to the battlecruisers that were drawing on their location, and then to the battlecruisers in the row beyond that, and then to the row beyond that. 

The battlecruisers fired on them. 

“Aang!” Zuko yelled. 

The Avatar quickly tugged the flying bison up into the air, leaving the flaming balls of molten rock to sail harmlessly underneath them. 

Or so they thought. 

Not all of the projectiles had to hit the line of ice that was stopping the battlecruisers in place. In this case, it took only two to blast a hole large enough for any battlecruiser to speed through. 

Some of the waterbenders must have realized the same thing that Zuko and the Avatar could clearly see from the air, and two of their small five-men ships sped towards the gap. 

One of those ships got hit by a molten fire ball.

The other got helplessly knocked off-course by the waves generated by the projectiles sinking into the sea. Some of these waterbenders were knocked off their ship, but they quickly shot themselves back out of the water, and then spun and twisted their vessel back towards the gap in the line of ice. 

Zuko glanced down the line of battlecruisers halted across the bay and saw that a Water Tribe landing party had mounted nearly every single one. 

“I’m going to keep the fire off of them!” the Avatar called, and their flying bison lurched down into firing range. Zuko took that to mean that he was going to jump, and scrambled over the lip of the saddle to the top of the bison’s head. This time, when the Avatar gave him the reins, he didn’t feel nearly as confused as he had that first time, though it wasn’t like Zuko could say that he had any better idea of what he was doing. 

The battlecruisers fired, and the Avatar calmly fell off the flying bison, much like a person taking a step off a bridge. 

This time, the Avatar brought his staff down against a single ball of fire, and he couldn’t manage to do more than glance it, sending it careening straight down into the sea. Three more flaming masses of rock soared through the air, untouched. 

The flying bison caught the Avatar right before his face would have crashed into the ocean’s waves with all the force of a man who had fallen from over four hundred feet up. 

It took a moment for the Avatar to roll to his feet. “Again,” he rasped. “Let’s do it again.”

Zuko bit his lip hard enough to feel one of his overly sharp canines break the flesh, tugging the reins in a vague upward motion. It seemed to get the point across enough to the bison, who started gaining altitude. He scanned the sea again. The waterbenders were steadily trying to bridge the gap in the ice, but for every projectile that the Avatar would manage to stop, there were going to be three more. 

“We’re making it worse!” Zuko yelled. “If we’re going to draw them, we need to move away from the front line!” Zuko pointed towards the heart of the fleet, the endless rows of battlecruiser upon battlecruiser. If Zhao’s ship was among them, Zuko couldn’t pick it out. 

“Then we’ll be surrounded!” the Avatar said. 

“If they fire on us, then that’s _their_ problem!”

“You mean—”

“They’ll hit themselves!”

“But that won’t stop them firing at the Water Tribe!”

“It’ll stop them from firing _more_!”

“Why are we arguing about this?”

Zuko didn’t have an answer to that. “Look,” he growled. “We attack that ship over there.” He pointed at a battlecruiser that was sending the majority of the fire balls at the Water Tribe’s line of ice. “It’ll split their attention between two fronts.”

“Sounds great!” the Avatar called. 

“Now get over here and fly us there, airhead!”

“Oh,” the Avatar mumbled, a bit sheepish. “Right.”

As the Avatar and Zuko switched seats, the battle beneath them raged on. Another battlecruiser encased in ice. Another Water Tribe ship lit ablaze. The second row of battlecruisers was steadily advancing on those ships beached on the Water Tribe’s row of ice. 

The flying bison swooped over their targeted ship. In less than a minute, Zuko and the Avatar would both leap over the side, letting the flying bison take to safety as they both took to battle, alone, against a fully armed warship. 

* * *

—

* * *

They ended up back-to-back, as they often did, Zuko’s taller and broader one against the Avatar’s short and thin one. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the Fire Navy had begun to expect them— anticipate them, even. As soon as they landed on one ship, the surrounding ships would send out their crews, until Zuko and the Avatar were not facing a single ship’s crew, but two ship’s crews. Three ship’s crews. 

Childhood memories of troop numbers sometimes passed through Zuko’s mind. Two hundred men to a fully armed battlecruiser. Four hundred men for two. Six hundred for— 

Archers posted at the bridge. Darts covered in strange oils. Knives thrown while their backs were turned. Deadly needles. Swords. Pikes. Spears. Maces. _Fire. Always fire._

At his best, when the Avatar could create some distance, Zuko thought he could take on thirty soldiers at once. At Zuko’s best, he gave himself a modest fifteen. That was a total of forty-five—

Zuko had taken two small knives in his left forearm. The Avatar had a needle pass close enough to his neck to cut a shallow line. Zuko had a slash clean through the side of his thigh. The Avatar had a burn across his lower back. Zuko had a shallow cut on the back of his left hand. The Avatar had an arrow glance against the back of his right shoulder. 

Without moving his left arm, Zuko could only take on four. Without moving his right leg, Zuko could only take on three. The Avatar couldn’t move his right arm, and that meant he could barely hold his staff, and that meant— 

“I was really hoping we’d reach twelve,” the Avatar rasped. 

Zuko darted his sword out at a firebender that was wisely keeping his distance. Too far. “On three,” Zuko hissed, “We’re breaking for it. On my left.”

“Appa’s not here yet,” the Avatar hissed back. 

The Fire Navy had begun to target the flying bison, even more than they targeted the Avatar. The bison was lucky to stick around for more than ten seconds after the drop before it had to take to the air. 

Zuko grunted as he spun and tackled the Avatar to the ground to dodge a thrown spear. The two of them tumbled over each other, bringing them precious feet closer to the railing. With a shove, he kicked out the feet of the soldier directly in front of him, and finished the roll all the way into a low jab directly into a soldier’s stomach. Zuko felt that soldier slam his elbow into the back of his head, but barely felt it. He forced himself to his feet, pushing the sword ever-deeper, and then shoved his whole body weight into the soldier’s chest, tackling the soldier off Zuko’s sword and onto the ground. 

Zuko ran straight over the man, planting his boot directly on his faceplate, and used it to leap to the railing. Mid-air, he tossed his sword to his bad hand and then he caught the railing with the good one. He flipped over it backwards, sending a quick look out at the bloody deck. Aang? Where was Aang? 

Aang was pinned to the ground, a soldier pressing his knee right over the small of his back. 

Instead of releasing the railing and diving into the sea, Zuko kept his grip and swung his feet around to plant against the side of the ship. He used his bad hand to sheath his sword, and then he pulled himself back over the railing. Once his feet were on the deck, he ripped out one of the small knives still stuck in his bad arm and threw it at the soldier pinning Aang. 

It didn’t do much more than clang against the side of the soldier’s helmet, but it made him look up. 

When Zuko kicked him, it was exactly like how children would kick a ball around on the street in the Earth Kingdom. It caught the bottom of his chin with a hearty crunch, snapping his neck backwards hard enough to move his whole body, blood and spittle flying in an arc. 

Zuko grabbed the back of Aang’s robe and heaved him like a sack of coal over the side of the ship. 

When Aang’s body disappeared over the edge, Zuko took a running jump and joined him. As he fell, air whipping against his body, he tried to keep his limbs as still as possible. 

He crashed into the waves feet first and plunged into blackness. A cold like nothing he had ever experienced before pressed in on all sides, a cold that felt like daggers, a cold that was ever-moving, a cold that pummeled his body, thrashed his limbs. He didn’t know which way was up or down, only that he couldn’t stay still. He needed to get out. The darkness pressed in on him. The salt sank into his wounds and made them sing with pain. His lungs screamed at him, and his mind started to scream at him, too— _you’re trapped— _

Zuko’s head finally broke the surface with a gasp. He ripped down the mask over his lower face, treading water between crashing waves. The battlecruiser was less than twenty meters away. Too close. Where was Aang?

Zuko desperately craned his neck around, but couldn’t see him anywhere. 

He dove back under the water. It wasn’t all blackness— there was light, too, if Zuko squinted hard enough. There had to be something he could see, some darker shadow against all the rest. A small shadow, Aang was barely twelve—

There. 

Zuko furiously kicked his feet. The weight of his dao made everything that much harder, and he unstrapped it from his waist. He didn’t look at them as they sank into the pit of the ocean. He got his bad arm around Aang’s waist, Aang somehow still clutching at his staff, and swam them both to the surface. 

They both gasped and coughed in the frigid air. Aang spat seawater, and it was all Zuko could do to keep the boy’s head above water. 

“Okay?” Zuko coughed. 

Aang gurgled something that might’ve been, “Urgh.”

“Swim?” Zuko tried. The battlecruiser was now only thirty meters away. Zuko glanced up at it and involuntarily tightened his grip on Aang’s chest. “Shit, shit, shit— Aang!”

This time, Aang managed to say, “Whu?”

“Make a ball of air! Make a ball of air around our heads!”

Aang blinked rapidly. “Wha?”

“They’re firing,” Zuko hissed. He took in a shaky breath, and then dunked himself and the Avatar under the surface. Aang hadn’t made a ball of air, and Zuko wasn’t sure if that was something he could even do, but there wasn’t any time to experiment. He picked a direction that he thought was away from the ship and started swimming. After a moment, Aang seemed to catch on, and he struggled out of Zuko’s grip. With both of them swimming, they lasted longer than Zuko would have, had he been lugging around someone else, but it still wasn’t long enough. 

They once again gasped for the surface. The battlecruiser was forty meters away, and slowly moving towards the Northern Water Tribe’s city and the front line. A second battlecruiser was gaining on their left. Fifty meters away. A third— behind the battlecruiser they’d jumped from— over a hundred meters away, but gaining. Who knew how many battlecruisers there were beyond their limited view of crashing, churning waves?

They’d be lucky to get out of this alive.

“Air,” Aang managed to say. “So we can hide?”

“Stay under long enough—” Zuko coughed. “Ship’ll think we’re dead.”

“Leave us alone.”

“Yeah.”

“All right, I can—” Aang paused to cough. “Yeah. Let’s do it.” Before Zuko could do more than grunt in response, Aang made a sweeping motion with the hand that still clutched his now-waterlogged staff, like he was giving the sky a one-armed hug. Aang wrapped his other arm around Zuko’s shoulders, and then they both sank underneath the waves. 

Back into the churning blackness, but this time was different. From above Zuko’s waist and to the crown of his head, there wasn’t any water. Like they had surfaced in an underwater cave, only without any cave. It was eerily quiet in their bubble, save for the sound of their own heavy breathing. Honestly, Zuko wouldn’t have known the difference between their current situation and holding a glass bowl over his head unless he reached out and let himself touch the water that pressed in against their bubble of air. 

They let themselves tensely, coldly float under the sea, occasionally kicking to keep themselves from rising to the surface, navigating by weak lances of light undercut by large swathes of shadow— the battlecruisers passing ominously overhead. Aang had to maintain an arc shape with his arm, but luckily it was his good arm. 

“Well,” Aang whispered, his voice overloud in such a small space, trembling with barely suppressed shivers. “This is pretty cool.”

Zuko did not think their current situation was cool in any way except the very literal. His own tremors wracked his body, making his speech jerky and disjointed. “If we don’t get out of this frost-bitten sea in ten spirit-forsaken minutes, we’re both _dead_.”

“Oh, monkeyfeathers,” Aang said, as if the idea just dawned on him. “You’re right. I can’t warm myself up because we’re surrounded by water—”

“_I_ can’t warm myself up without us both suffocating!”

“Wait— what do you mean? You’re not an airbender. Wait, is it—”

“_Firebending!_”

“Stop yelling at me!”

“I’m only _yelling _because we’re about to _die!”_

“This was _your _idea!”

“And it kept us from getting impaled by twenty different arrows! Now _you _do something!”

“Like _what!_” Aang howled. 

It was— Zuko had to admit, ten meters below in a subzero sea, hunted by the largest fleet in Fire Nation history, practically hugging the Avatar in a small, dwindling air bubble, bleeding out from various lacerations and stab wounds— one of the most pathetic arguments of his entire life.

“I don’t know,” Zuko said quietly, suddenly drained of all energy, tracking the dark shadow of a battlecruiser overhead. He was starting to lose sensation in his feet. Soon, he’d stop shivering altogether. “Pray, I guess.”

He felt Aang slump against his side. “This is pretty bad.”

Zuko opened his mouth, but what was there to say? Of course this was bad. The entire mission had been bad from the beginning. Zuko cursed himself, because he’d always known where the two of them would end up, if they’d continued on with this idiotic scheme. He’d known the instant that Aang had gotten that look on his face— Why hadn’t Zuko forced him to return to the city? Why hadn’t Zuko knocked him out, dragged him to safety? 

Zuko pressed his eyes closed and let the darkness remind him of the weight of the ocean overhead. He never should have gotten involved. He never should have started to care. They’d die. Everything died. It didn’t matter what he did. He’d always lose. He’d failed his uncle, the one and only man in Zuko’s entire life that cared about a failure like him, and now he’d fail this kid, too. 

What Zuko ended up saying was, “I’m sorry.”

His eyes were closed, so he didn’t see how Aang reacted, other than the fact that he was silent for a long moment, each of them shivering, cold and damp. Zuko was finding it harder and harder to breathe, and a part of him wondered if that was the air or the frantic beat of his heart, the panic encroaching at the edge of his mind like a creeping darkness. 

“Hey,” Aang said, gently knocking Zuko’s head with his own head. “We can still turn this around.”

Zuko dragged his eyes open. Aang was looking at him with a somber, crooked smile. 

Aang took his arm off Zuko’s shoulders and drifted a few inches away. He stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as he reached down the front of his wet, ice-littered tunic. Zuko wrinkled his nose. 

“Ah-hah!” Aang cheered, and then pulled his hand out, brandishing a little wet wooden token. He waved it proudly in front of Zuko’s face, but it was too fast for Zuko to actually see what it was. “With this, we’re saved.”

Zuko felt himself scrambling to form any kind of sentence. “Ah-huh.”

“This,” Aang said, with a haughty little heft of the token, “is a bison whistle, Zuko.”

“Congrats.”

“You know— a whistle. To call a flying bison.”

“Great.”

“A flying bison that can swoop in and pick us up.”

Zuko blinked tiredly. “Aang.”

“You told me to not give up, remember?” Aang asked, tapping his head with the little bison whistle. “I’m not ready to give in yet. Now the question is— are you?”

* * *

—

* * *

Their heads broke the surface of the sea with a gasp. Aang brought the whistle to his lips, but Zuko couldn’t hear if it made a sound, not over the crashing of the sea, the distant yelling, the whipping of the wind. 

Zuko took the time to carefully breathe fire into his body, and sensation trickled into his toes with a painful clarity. Fire licked from his mouth. 

Aang shook the whistle next to his ear, as if to clear it of seawater. “Ooh,” he said. “I’ve never seen a firebender do that before. S’kinda like a dragon! Teach me?”

“Blow your frosted whistle, Avatar!” Zuko snapped. 

For once, Aang listened to him, and he blew his whistle. Again, Zuko couldn’t hear anything from it. They bobbed over a wave. Battlecruisers lined them on each side, forty meters off. It was impossible to tell where they were in relation to the Northern Water Tribe, not without a higher vantage point. Another wave hit his back, and he nearly plunged back beneath the surface. 

“Aang!” Zuko yelled.

“It’s going to take a second!”

_“Aang!”_

“It’s going to work— just— just hold on—”

Zuko had never thought that he would be happy to be covered by the shadow of a two-ton beast, but he could say that about a lot of things that had happened on this long, tiring day. The flying bison plunged himself into the ocean before them, kicking up a wave that sent both Zuko and Aang reeling. Zuko felt himself accidentally inhale seawater, and started choking. 

It was hard to tell whether it was Zuko dragging Aang, or Aang dragging Zuko. They both had a grip on each other’s injured arms, and they both reached the waterlogged fur of the bison’s side at the same time. Aang threw his staff up into the saddle, and then, with an effort that Zuko knew would have meant nothing to him a couple hours ago, they dragged themselves out of the sea. 

They both flopped down into the saddle, side by side, Zuko on his stomach, Aang on his back. They had dragged a pool of water with them, and slowly that puddle started to drench itself with blood. 

Zuko let himself have a moment to lay in surprised agony— surprised at the fact that he was still alive, and in agony over the shredded remains of his left forearm, the bleeding gash on the side of his thigh. 

With a resounding _thump _that shook the air, the bison slapped his tail, and they picked up out of the sea. 

Zuko forced himself to sit up, slowly drawing his legs up to his chest so that he could sit with his arms loosely wrapped around them. His gaze was drawn to the battle below, and look— 

They were being fired upon. 

Zuko started laughing. 

“Zuko?” Aang mumbled. 

He ran a hand through the tangled mess of his hair, his fingers catching on one of his spirit-damned horns, and said, “Fuck.”

“_Zuko?”_ Aang said again, with more emphasis. 

The flying bison let out a low rumble, and then they suddenly flew upwards with enough speed that Zuko had to clutch at the lip of the saddle to brace himself. 

Like a man who couldn’t look away from his own destruction, Zuko couldn’t drag his gaze away from the balls of fire that had been sent their way— but now those projectiles sailed right underneath them, their flames doing little more than heating the base of the bison’s feet. 

“Appa,” Zuko said, a bit feverishly. “I would do anything for you.”

Aang weakly patted the bottom of the saddle, as if it would somehow reach the flying bison. “See, Zuko? Appa’ll take care of us. He’s my best friend in the whole world. I love him.”

The flying bison let out another low rumble.

“He’ll take—” Aang continued, his voice growing softer and softer. “He’ll take care of us. I think I’m going to— sleep now.”

“Wait!” Zuko barked, but Aang’s eyes were already closed, his body still and prone, his face pale and drawn. 

Zuko reached out and poked his temple, moving the boy’s head a little side to side, but there was no other reaction. 

“Weakling,” he huffed under his breath. “Piece of shit can’t take a little blood loss. Some Avatar _you_ are.” Zuko sighed, feeling the breeze ruffle his hair. “What am I supposed to do now, huh?”

No one answered him, not even the flying bison. 

Painfully, Zuko turned around so that he could get a better view of the ocean beneath them, the lines of smokestacks, the pyres of ice, the dark, hard metal of battlecruiser after battlecruiser. They were very high up, nearly as high as they had been when they crossed the sea a couple days ago. He could clearly see the large ice wall blocking off the Northern Water Tribe’s city, and it was getting closer. 

“At least we’re going the right way,” Zuko muttered. 

It was as they were passing the front line that Zuko heard the resounding crack of breaking ice. Morbidly, Zuko watched as battlecruiser after battlecruiser navigated through their own fallen ships, and then their hulls, designed to cut through ice— finally did so. 

For the first time since the battle began, the battlecruisers had managed to get past the Water Tribe’s ice trap, and now they were advancing, quickly moving into firing range. 

The first flaming ball of rock hit the Water Tribe’s city just as Zuko and Aang finally crested their wall. 

* * *

—


	14. Wanted: The Moon Spirit, Tui - Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 6/29/20: Changed rating from Teen to Mature, because I think there's a little too much graphic violence in this story to get away with the Teen rating, not because of anything sexual.

As soon as Appa had landed on the terrace to the palace’s front door, Zuko had thrown the unconscious Avatar over his shoulder, and had made his slow, painfully controlled way inside. A guard had nearly screamed in shock at seeing them, but then gathered himself enough to quickly lead him down a distasteful amount of stairs to where the palaces’ guard, retainers, workers, and even some villagers had evacuated. 

The floors were lined with cots, filled with huddled children and worried mothers. A section had been divided off with a small amount of tables and chairs that had previously been inside the chamber, and that was what they called the infirmary, though there weren’t any injured people there besides Aang and Zuko.

But Zuko suspected that they wouldn’t be alone for very long, not with the distant shaking and rattling of the palace’s upper floors as the Fire Nation sent missile after missile into their city. 

At a glance, there were about three women who could’ve been some of those healing waterbenders. Two of these water healers had nearly tripped over themselves in their haste to take Aang from his arms. 

The last one looked more like she’d rather go run through a room of glass shards barefoot than approach Zuko— though, to her credit, she still did it. She was younger than June, but still older than Zuko, with her brown hair cut short to about her chin. She was definitely the youngest of the three healers. 

Her dark eyes were very wide as she crept up to him. 

“Um,” she said. “Hello.”

Zuko held out his left arm. “Are you going to take this knife out or should I do it myself?”

She squeaked. 

Zuko curled his lip. “Fine, then.”

He started reaching for it, and, surprisingly, the water healer grabbed his wrist. She quickly let go as if she touched a bed of hot coals— or maybe blood. She’d probably gotten Zuko’s blood on her hands. “Your name is Lee, isn’t it? From the Earth Kingdom?”

“You’re a healer, right? Go get me some blasted bandages.”

“Healer,” she squeaked. “Yes, I’m— Oh, Spirit of the Sea. You’re covered in so much blood.”

Zuko looked down and sniffed at his tunic. It was probably a very bad decision to wear white. “Most of it washed off,” he said. 

The water healer looked at the two older healers, as if asking for help, but they were very intent on Aang’s unconscious form, laid out on a table.

“You must be in a lot of pain,” the healer eventually managed to say, drawing a stream of water out of a pouch at her side. “Here, lay down, and I’ll put you to sleep.”

Zuko felt something snap in his head like a frayed rope. “Put _me_ to _sleep_?” he snarled. “Take a single step closer to me and I’ll gut you with my bare hands.”

The water healer took a hesitant step back. 

Zuko brought his hands up into a ready position, feeling his left arm loudly protest the motion and ignoring it. “Try to use your waterbending on me and you’re _dead_, you piece of shitty sea foam.”

“Lee!” a woman’s voice rang out, and the princess came into view at the corner of his eye, jogging into the ring of torchlight around the infirmary area, still looking as impeccable as she always did, her intricate hair not a strand out of place. The Avatar’s pet, the lemur, was hanging off her shoulder, though it flew off as soon as it saw Aang. 

The princess had a smile on her face, though as soon as her eyes landed on Zuko, it quickly faded away. “Spirit of the Moon,” she gasped. 

Great. Now the princess was here. “If I pass out for a single second,” Zuko hissed to the water healer. “I’m going to hunt you down.”

“Sir,” the water healer squawked. 

The princess brought herself to her full height and stomped over to stand at the water healer’s side, facing Zuko. “Lee, stop bullying Inka! She’s trying to help you!” 

“She threatened to drown me!” Zuko yelled back. 

The healer clutched at her head. “I did not! I swear, Princess, I would never!” 

“No,” the princess said sternly. “Everyone please calm down. Let’s talk about this like normal people, all right?”

Zuko didn’t have time to sit down and talk about something like a normal person. His body _hurt, _exhaustion clawed at every inch of his body, and he wanted, more than anything, to just close his eyes and lay down. 

But he resisted. 

“You want to help me?” he hissed at the water healer. “Then get me something to keep me awake.”

“But Sir!” the water healer blurted, as if completely outraged. 

“You’re gravely injured, Lee, can’t you see that?” the princess said. “You need rest and time to heal.”

“_Time?_” he snarled. “I only have a set amount of time to do what I came here to do, and I’m going to _do it_, and if any of you get in my way—”

“All right,” the princess said, holding up her hand. “There’s no need to threaten us further.”

“I wouldn’t have to threaten you if you just—”

“Just what?” the princess said sharply. “Do exactly as you say?”

“It couldn’t hurt,” he growled snidely. 

The princess tilted her head from side to side, as if she couldn’t believe a word that was coming out of Zuko’s mouth.

“Princess Yue?” the water healer asked hesitantly, looking from Zuko to the princess and then back to Zuko. 

“Do as he says, Inka,” the princess said, looking at Zuko as well. “He was out there fighting for our people. The least we can do is respect his wishes.”

Zuko gave a small nod. 

The princess only sighed. 

“I’ll need to— to retrieve some supplies, then,” the water healer muttered, scratching the back of her head. “There might still be some in the palace.” The water healer quickly bowed to the princess, and then hurried toward the staircase like any second Zuko would start chasing after her with a knife. 

Zuko suddenly felt a wave of dizziness, and it took everything he had not to lose his balance. It must have shown somehow, maybe his foot had slipped, because the princess caught him by the shoulders, though she was a fair bit shorter than him. 

“It can’t hurt you to at least sit down,” the princess said quietly, hushed like the sentence was meant only for him. 

Zuko was startled into taking a trembling step back. He found a chair and sat in it, hunched over with his arms braced on his thighs, head bowed. It didn’t seem to help all that much, but with his head bowed his hair made it so that he couldn’t see anything, and that was better. It made it so that he didn’t really think about the fact that he was in a locked room underground— 

Oh, Agni, he was thinking about it. 

“Lee, do you mind pointing out where you’re injured?” he heard the princess ask. “I know I’m not a waterbender, but I can still take a look. Probably wouldn’t be able to clean it as well as Inka could. Or— I guess I’d probably just make it worse, now that I think about it.” He heard her sigh again. “I’m not good for anything.”

“What are you still doing here?” Zuko asked, mostly to the floor. 

There was a pause, and Zuko couldn’t guess at what she did for the length of it— maybe she considered leaving. Eventually, the princess said, “I think it would help Inka if you laid down on a table. I promise that she won’t try to drown you, or knock you out, or whatever else you think she’s going to do. I’ll watch her for you.”

Zuko was silent as he thought about it. 

“Just— please. You’re worse than an injured wolf cub.”

He dragged himself back up to a regular sitting position so that he could look at her. “You’ll watch her?”

The princess pressed a hand over her heart. “Like an eagle-hawk.”

“And if she tries to kill me, what would you do?”

The princess pumped her fist into the air, and this was the moment that Zuko realized that she was treating him like a particularly whiny toddler. “I’ll tackle her to the ground!” 

“Hm,” Zuko rumbled. 

“I’ll run her through!” the princess said. 

“Ah-huh.”

“She’ll never see the light of day again!”

Zuko felt himself involuntarily flinch. His ears started ringing, so he couldn’t hear if the princess said anything more to mock him, but he couldn’t say that he missed it. His hearing only came back to him with the low-drone of his fake-name. 

“ — Lee? Are you listening to me? Lee?”

He shook his head. “Lay down, right?” 

There was a definite furrow between the princess’ brows. “Inka is back.”

The healer was standing right next to the princess, and Zuko cursed himself for missing her come back in. She was holding a little clay mug. She bit her lip, and then said, “Before I give you this, you have to let me heal you. Or I— won’t give you the tea. Yeah. That’s right.”

Zuko focused his attention on her and she seemed to hunch in on herself. 

“Probably,” the healer tacked on. 

Zuko proffered her his injured arm, Inka passed her mug to the princess, and then Zuko spent his time trying very hard to be still. Eventually, the healer brought out her water again, and Zuko tensed, but all the healer did was press it against his wounds, just like Katara had done when she had healed his head wound. It felt cool, but not cold, and soon the pain faded from the injury like it had never been there in the first place. Though that wasn’t quite right. The wound on his leg was healed up fully, but the stab wounds on his arm were a bit deeper. 

“Normally I’d say come in for another session,” the healer said nervously. “But. Erm.”

Zuko flexed his left hand and decided that the pain was easily manageable. “It’s fine.”

“A quick question for you, Lee,” the princess jutted in. “Do you actually know the meaning of the word ‘fine’?”

Zuko was quickly getting tired of having the princess around. “You said you had something to keep me awake.”

“It’s— okay,” the healer started, not looking at him. “It’s not something I really recommend. Sleeping is extremely important to the healing process, you know? But we’re being attacked, and the Avatar is unconscious and—” She hesitated. “It’ll keep you awake for two days. But after that, I can assure you that you won’t be anymore. I can’t say for sure how long you’ll be knocked out. Some people were out for days.”

Two days. That had to be enough time to find his uncle. 

“Give it to me. And if it knocks me out instead—”

“It won’t!” the healer squeaked. “Probably.”

Zuko gave her a look. 

“It won’t!” she hurried to say again. 

The princess handed him the mug. Inside was a black liquid, like a particularly dark tea. He sniffed it, and it was incredibly bitter. He wrinkled his nose, and then brought it to his lips for a tentative sip. 

It tasted horrible. 

Zuko was reminded of the time that June had taken him drinking for his fifteenth birthday, though there was no acrid tang of alcohol. Thinking of June didn’t make him feel any better, but it did remind him to approach drinking the horrible tea like an alcoholic going for shots, and it also reminded him that his uncle probably would not approve of anyone drinking a tea like an alcoholic going for shots, and this made him feel cool and rebellious, but also like he was a disappointment, and— good, he finished it. He didn’t have a table to slam the mug down upon, like June would do, so instead he handed it awkwardly back to the princess. 

“How do you feel?” the healer hedged. 

“Fine,” Zuko said.

The princess sighed, using a hand to rub her temple. “He could be dying for all the information that gives us.”

The sound of footsteps drew his attention over her shoulder, where he saw a semi-panicking Sokka burst into a run to reach the Avatar’s prone side. He watched Sokka speak quietly to one of the water healers, and whatever he heard caused him to relax his shoulders. His clothing was slightly different— he was wearing a light piece of leather armor, though nothing as extensive as what the Chief wore. He looked around the room, and his eyes met Zuko’s. 

The next thing Zuko knew, Sokka was throwing his arm around Zuko’s shoulders in an overly familiar manner that nearly had Zuko grabbing his arm and flipping him into the dirt. 

“Hey, buddy old pal!” Sokka said. “Been looking everywhere for you!”

“Stop touching me.”

Sokka shook him once, but respectfully withdrew his arm. “I’ve been hearing a lot of stuff about you and Aang.”

“Have you?”

“It’s all anyone’ll talk about. It’s really been helping me out, actually.”

Zuko felt his eye twitch. He wondered if that was something to worry about. “Has it?”

Sokka’s smile turned a bit chagrined. 

“How are you doing, Sokka?” the princess asked. 

Sokka's expression quickly vaporized, and he jumped in place and wheeled around to face her, bowing slightly. “Princess Yue!”

She let out a small laugh, hand covering her mouth. 

“I’ve been doing well!” Sokka said, just slightly too loudly. “I’ve been making preparations for a special mission!”

“Thank you for working so hard,” the princess said. “It means everything to me.”

Sokka grew slightly pink. 

Zuko rolled his eyes. 

“I’m going to— go,” the water healer said, jerking her thumb towards her companions behind her. Before anyone could say anything about it, she skittered away. She didn’t hide under a chair, though Zuko wondered if she considered it. 

Sokka and the princess curiously watched her leave. 

“I believe that Lee has deeply frightened her,” the princess explained to Sokka as if Zuko wasn’t there at all. 

“Ah,” Sokka said. “Yeah, he’ll do that.”

“I didn’t do shit,” Zuko denied. “And I’m guessing that you’re here for me.”

Sokka and the princess shared a commiserating look, though Zuko couldn’t say about what. Then Sokka rubbed the back of his neck. “Look,” he sighed. “You look pretty bad, man. I mean it when I say you really don’t have to join us.”

Zuko rose to his feet. He didn’t even stumble. “I’m going back out there whether you join me or not.” He started walking toward the staircase. 

“Oh,” Sokka muttered behind him. “Now _I’m _joining _you. _Love that. Real great power dynamic there.”

Zuko stopped and shot him an impatient look over his shoulder. 

“All right,” Sokka said tiredly. “I’m coming. Stay safe, Princess Yue.”

“The same to you, Sokka,” Zuko heard the princess say. “I’m not sure he needs it, but look out for Lee as well.”

Sokka sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. “Oh, now that’s a tall order.”

“Sokka,” Zuko said. 

Sokka dramatically wiped his brow. “I must go. The king awaits.”

The princess giggled. 

* * *

—

* * *

The first time the ground rumbled and the walls shook, it was like an angry spirit had taken the city in its palm. There were about thirty other people in the shelter, but it was a woman named Tuwari who had invited Katara to sit with her and her two children around their own, small cookfire. A small earthen pot, steaming with a fragrant broth, rested on the coals. 

“You seem much calmer than everyone else,” Katara told Tuwari. She was much younger than Katara’s mom would have been, were she still around. 

“If I panic, everyone will panic.” Her hair was divided into two very long plaits of dark hair. As Katara watched, she made a swirling motion with her hand, and the pot of broth started to stir itself. Katara noted it with a detached, tired glance. 

“Why aren’t you with the other healing women?” Katara asked. 

Tuwari gave her a placid smile. “Oh. I tried to, when I was younger. But I never could get the hang of it.” She nodded her head to her two daughters. Neither could have been older than five. “That’s all right, though. I wouldn’t want to leave them.” 

“That’s fair,” Katara said, trying for her own smile. 

Tuwari pursed her lips. “You seem preoccupied.”

The ground shook as another missile launched by the Fire Nation slammed into the city’s wall. 

Katara contemplated her hands lying in her lap. “It’s childish.” 

“I can’t imagine so. Anyone would be scared in a situation like this.”

Katara frowned. Tuwari continued to stir her small pot, carefully not mentioning whether she was scared herself. 

“I’m not scared,” Katara finally admitted. “I’m angry.”

Tuwari raised her brows in a look of mild surprise. 

“Not just with the Fire Nation,” Katara said. “With the Tribe, too. Maybe that means I’m angry with the world. That sounds horrible, doesn’t it?”

“It sounds like you need to do something,” Tuwari said, in the same sort of calm voice a person would use when talking about the weather. It could have been judgmental, Katara was expecting that, but it wasn’t. 

“Do something about the world?” Katara asked, bemused. 

Tuwari shrugged. “I don’t know. But anger often stems from frustration, and frustration comes from being stuck. Are you stuck right now?”

“I mean,” Katara tried. “No one’s keeping me here.”

“I say this kind of stuff to my toddlers all the time,” Tuwari said with a small, secretive smile. “Especially when they can’t reach something. Throws them into fits.”

Katara puffed out her cheeks. “Wow, thanks. Nice to know I’m a toddler.”

Tuwari laughed. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make it sound like that! I just mean— I get it. It’s a very difficult time right now, and yet— here we are, hiding away while our husbands do all the work.”

“Do you wish you were out there?” Katara asked. “With the other waterbenders.”

Tuwari hummed to herself. For a few long moments, she didn’t say a thing. 

“Do you want me to say yes?” Tuwari finally asked. 

Katara stared at her and didn’t answer. 

“I don’t think fighting is meant for everyone,” Tuwari said. “Like my husband. He’s not very good at it, but I think I like that about him. It takes a special kind of person to be able to hurt others.” 

“But he’s out there right now, isn’t he?” Katara said. “My brother is, too. And Aang, oh, _Aang.” _Katara pressed a hand to her forehead. “What am I _doing_ here?”

“Where else would you be?” Tuwari asked. 

Katara slid her hand off her face. “I came here for a reason. I came here _for _the invasion, and yet, here I am, hiding away from it.”

“Well, what would you do instead?” 

Katara stared at Tuwari’s patient face and wished she had said something else, something that wasn’t as kind. Katara didn’t want to deal with kindness right now. 

The room shook again, followed by the sound of crackling ice. A few people cried out. Along the wall, a deep crack had formed. Katara stood up and ran her hand over it, sealing it closed. When it was done, Katara stopped and looked down at her hand, at the well-worn gloves she had taken with her from the other side of the world. 

She walked back over to Tuwari. “I think I’m going to go for a walk.”

Tuwari furrowed her brow. “Be careful. It’s dangerous out there.”

“That’s what they keep telling me,” Katara said, waving goodbye.

* * *

—

* * *

In the armory, Zuko strapped on a whale-bone scimitar amid a group of men who stared at him with wide eyes. Fifteen in total. Two men around the age of twenty in particular seemed to gawk especially hard. One of these men, a fairly short guy, shoved the other man, tall and lanky, forward. 

“Erk,” Tall and Lanky said to Zuko. 

Zuko grabbed a pair of leather greaves and swapped out his blood-stained ones. “Was that language? Are you trying to speak to me?”

“Oh my stars, dude,” Short Guy whispered, as if in awe. “He’s so blastin’ cool.”

“Erm,” Tall and Lanky said. “Hi.”

“Introduce us,” Short Guy whispered. 

“I’m Onar,” Tall and Lanky blurted. “He’s Tigi.”

“I don’t care,” Zuko said. 

Sokka swooped in like a hovering parent keeping his child from eating shards of glass. He leaned against the weapons rack next to Zuko, blocking out the two hovering men, and crossed his arms. “As I’ve said, word’s been spreading about what you and Aang did out there. People have been saying that you’re a literal beast in battle. Legends are being written as we speak.”

“A beast?” Zuko asked, disquieted. 

Sokka shrugged. 

“Is Aang also a monster?” Zuko asked.

“Dude’s the _Avatar,” _Sokka said, like that was the end of it. 

Zuko frowned to himself. 

“Well, if you’re ready, we’re moving out.” Sokka looked very serious. “We need to end this siege tonight, before the Fire Navy breaks into the city.”

Zuko found some stray bandages wrapped around a spear. He threw his gloves on the ground, and started wrapping the bandages around his bruised knuckles. He flexed his hands. “I’m ready.”

As he followed Sokka out of the armory, he heard the Short Guy say, “He’s like, the coolest guy I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I think I want his autograph,” Tall and Lanky said. 

“He’d probably just spit at us, though.”

“I don’t think I’d mind.”

Zuko quickened his pace to put Sokka between them. 

* * *

—

* * *

“Everyone knows the plan,” Sokka said, hands on his hips, facing the crowd of soldiers that had somehow gotten under his command. The near full moon glistened against the tumultuous icy water of the bay. “We’re in teams of three. Me, Hahn, and Tilliye are taking point. Lee, you’re with me.”

In the distance, Zuko could make out the spires of fallen, ice-encrusted battlecruisers. In front of them, floating in the harbor to the west of the entrance to the city, were three small ships little bigger than a canoe, and much smaller than the ships that the rest of the Water Tribe warriors were using. 

In Sokka’s squad were the men Onar and Tigi, who kept sending looks Zuko’s way that Zuko did not care for. The other member was a slightly older man named Payok, who sported a goatee. Payok, Zuko learned, was a waterbender. 

The team did not inspire much confidence. Onar was a spearman, and Tigi, the shorter one, wielded a club. Payok had a weary, cautious look about him. Zuko didn’t think he was incompetent, but it was clear that the man didn’t like the fact that he was there. In fact, he looked like he was regretting it every second. 

Zuko looked over at Sokka, and saw that his eyes were pinched. 

“Do you think you can handle the waterbending trick?” Sokka asked Payok. 

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” the man said gruffly. “Kind of ingenious, though. No one’s ever thought to do something like that. Water’s too cold.”

Sokka had a pleased look on his face. “Well, let’s hope it works. If it doesn’t, we’re really dead in the water.”

Onar shuffled a step closer to Zuko, who was standing a step behind Sokka. Zuko thought that the other man might be trying to get his attention and studiously ignored him. 

“Is everyone from the Earth Kingdom like you?” Onar blurted. 

Zuko felt his non-existent patience evaporating in the non-existent sunlight. 

“Is everyone from the Water Tribe as stupid as—”

Sokka kicked him in the shin. 

Zuko clacked his mouth shut. 

Sokka waved to the other groups of men. Hahn had a group of six, including himself, mostly younger men around his age. They seemed to be wearing better armor, and had a confident air about themselves. Tilliye was the tallest man among them— the same man who had spoken up in Sokka’s defense, earlier that day. He had the older men, the more experienced fighters. Sokka, it seemed, had the dregs. And Zuko. 

“Let’s head out, men!” Hahn barked. “Let’s snatch victory from the throats of the firebenders!”

His group let out their own cheers, pounding their fists into their hands. 

Tilliye gravely nodded to Sokka, and every squad hopped into their ships, loaded with grappling hooks. 

Zuko was not very keen about drowning twice in the same day. He sat sandwiched shoulder to shoulder with Sokka, and made sure that Sokka saw his glower. Sokka sent him an apologetic smile. Onar and Tigi sat in front of them. The four of them picked up their oars. 

Payok stood at the very front, arms outstretched. 

“Payok, you know what to do,” Sokka said. 

Their ship plunged under the water. 

Zuko found himself involuntarily holding his breath, but when the cold gush of water never came, he slowly let it out. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, lit only by thin shafts of light cast by the moon. Just like Aang had done earlier that day, they had a dome of air surrounding the top of their ship, but with the ship underneath them, floating just as it would on water on the surface, there was no chance of death by hypothermia. 

“Whoa,” Tigi breathed out. 

“This is really really cool,” Onar said. 

“Payok?” Sokka prompted. 

“I could do this all night,” the man said, waving his arms in a sinuous flowing motion. Waterbending the water away, as far as Zuko could tell, was a more involved procedure than simply holding air close. That meant that propelling themselves with waterbending was beyond Payok’s repertoire— they would have needed a second waterbender. 

That meant that it was time to row. 

It really was no different than rowing through an underwater cave, but Zuko kept the idea firmly in his mind that the ceiling above him was just water, and if he wanted he could swim to the surface at any time— and it would be fine, too, because Zuko had his breath of fire. That would be fine. 

“You good?” Sokka asked, under his breath. 

Zuko gave Sokka a side-long look, studying him. He had a club strapped around his waist, and a boomerang at his back. The leather armor was a darker blue, but shabby and well-worn. There wasn’t any paint on his face. He looked tired. He looked older. In fact, Onar and Tigi, two men more than four years Zuko’s senior, looked like children next to him. How was that possible?

“I’m tired,” Zuko said. “But it’s fine. It won’t be a problem.”

“Is it crazy that I believe you?” Sokka said around a smile that quickly vanished. “I’m still worried about Katara.”

“You haven’t found her?”

“I tried to look, but. It’s a big city.”

Onar peeked around his gangly shoulder. “Who’s Katara?”

“My little sister,” Sokka said. “We came here together, all the way from the South Pole.”

“That must be a story and a half!” Onar exclaimed. “Spirits, I’ve barely been out of the bay.”

“I’ve been on an Earth Kingdom ship, once,” Tigi said. 

Onar knocked their shoulders together. “Shut up. No you haven’t.”

“Just because you weren’t there, Onar—”

Zuko let out a loud, aggravated sigh, and Tigi cut himself off. 

“Sorry, Mr. Lee,” Tigi coughed. 

Zuko rolled his eyes to the water above their heads. “Don’t call me that.”

“Normally, I’d hop on the bandwagon,” Sokka said. Zuko shot him a deadly look. “But Lee’s already really pissed at me. So.”

“What’d you _do,_ Sokka?” Onar asked, completely scandalized.

Zuko kept his eyes locked on Sokka’s face. 

“Urm, well,” Sokka struggled to respond. “I think that’s enough talk. We’re in the middle of a deadly mission, people! Chop chop!”

Payok let out a soft chuckle. 

* * *

—

* * *

The thing was, Katara had just wanted a look. She wasn’t going to do anything about it. She wasn’t going to charge out there and make herself a target, or distract them in the middle of a critical moment, costing them their lives. 

But the Northern Water Tribe’s waterbenders were as beautiful as they were deadly. She could barely make them out in the light of the near full-moon, skimming the surface of the sea like they belonged there. Wherever they stopped, another spire rose against the battlecruiser-ridden horizon. 

What she noticed, as she watched them from her frozen beach, hidden behind her own ice spire, was that they worked in teams. A single waterbender, no matter how skilled, couldn’t take down a war ship. 

But there was one that was especially skilled. He rode on a tornado of water, just like Aang had done, all those months ago, though his tornado was nowhere near as large. He sprung himself up onto the deck of a ship, and washed soldiers away like wiping away food from a dirty dish. 

Then there came the finishing move. Everything about it was critical, Katara saw. The placement of each waterbender. The precision of each movement. Katara watched the team of waterbenders fly into their positions, a low hum of excitement in her gut. There was nothing quite as spectacular, as humbling, as seeing a battlecruiser become speared on the water it floated on. 

But then, right before Katara’s eyes, she saw one of the waterbenders get speared through the neck. His body fell backwards into the sea, disappearing like a mirage in the desert. She couldn’t hear if anyone cried out, not over the crashing of the waves. 

The remaining waterbenders tried to finish the job, but their ice only covered the bow of the ship. A crack loud enough to reach even Katara reverberated over the sea, and their ice shattered, the battlecruiser plowing over another waterbender in the front. 

Katara clutched painfully at the ice she hid behind. 

The waterbenders scattered, zig-zagging over the surface of the ocean. The man who had been hit by the prow of the ship was dragged out ten meters to the right of it, by that super talented waterbender, who threw him over his shoulder. The three remaining waterbenders grouped together, but it wasn’t long before they had to scatter. Katara couldn’t see it, but someone must have fired on them. 

Individually, the group started heading towards the shore. 

Katara’s shore, to be specific.

* * *

—

* * *

It was getting harder to breathe. 

“We’ve been rowing for a long time,” Onar said, his breaths coming out short and labored. 

“We’re still passing under ships,” Sokka said. “We need to come around the back.”

“But how much longer is that going to be?” Onar whined. 

Zuko promised himself that he wasn’t going to push the man overboard. 

“As long as it takes, you prepubescent trash hogmonkey,” Zuko said. 

Sokka pressed a hand to his forehead. “Lee.”

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Onar squeaked out, hiking his shoulders up to his ears. 

Tigi sneaked a hesitant look over his shoulder at Zuko, but quickly turned back to the prow of the ship. 

“Thank the Moon,” Payok sighed out. “Look, I think we’ve reached the end of it!”

Above their heads, the hulking shadows of the battlecruisers petered off, leaving only undisturbed rays of moonlight. Distantly, Zuko could even make out another one of their ships in the sea, but he couldn’t tell if it was Hahn’s or Tilliye’s. 

Sokka frowned, peering up at the surface. 

“I’ll go check,” Zuko offered. 

Sokka quickly turned his frown on Zuko. “If you want to _die, _then sure, go ahead.”

“I won’t die,” Zuko said, his voice low and serious, trying to impress upon Sokka the fact that he was a _firebender_ without saying any of it out loud.

“You serious?” Sokka asked. 

“Don’t move the ship too much or I won’t be able to find it.” Zuko dropped his scimitar, gave a sour, distasteful look at the churning water, and then leaped overboard. 

It was, impossibly, even colder than Zuko had remembered. It nearly made him stop moving, but his fighting instinct got him kicking his way to the surface. His head broke out into the air with a gasp that quickly transitioned to breathing fire. But with his body still submerged, it was a losing game. He needed to be quick. 

Well, it was a good thing Zuko had checked. 

He took in a breath, and sunk down into the sea. He wasn’t sure how to approach their ship— whether to drop in from the top or climb in from the side. Dropping in took less effort, and so Zuko landed hard, sprawled on Sokka’s lap.

“Dude!” Sokka yelled. “You’re soaking wet! Get off me!”

Zuko struggled into his own seat with as much dignity as he could muster. His teeth were clacking, his body wracked with shivers. “Zhao’s ship.”

Sokka was trying in vain to get rid of the seawater that had soaked into his coat. “Did you see it?”

“It’s in front of us. Waiting far at the rear.”

“In front of us? Still?”

Distantly, Zuko could see one of their other ships, either Hahn’s or Tilliye’s, rising to the surface. 

“They’re going to get spotted,” Zuko said, nodding his heading towards them. 

“Shit, everyone row!” Sokka barked. “We need to catch up to them!”

Zuko picked up the oar with a wet, shivering hand, and started to row. 

* * *

—

* * *

An idea occurred to Katara. She couldn’t say if it was a good one, or if it would even work, but Katara was a _waterbender,_ no matter how much training she’d received. Which happened to be none, in her case. But still. 

The waterbenders were fast approaching her location. 

Katara found herself untying her mother’s betrothal necklace and stuffing it into her pocket. In her bulky winter coat, in the dim lighting of the moon, if Katara just cut all her hair off— 

No time to think. Katara bended a piece of ice into a sharp knife and grabbed her braid. No time to second guess. She cut it off from the roots, feeling the odd sensation of short hair tickling the back of her neck. She tossed the cut hair over her shoulder. 

She could probably pass for a boy. And a boy— they might allow a boy to help them, right now, when there was no one else around. When the fate of the Tribe rested on their shoulders. It left a sour taste in Katara’s mouth. 

The world worked on screwed rules. 

The first of the waterbenders reached the ice shore. He was the talented one, the one carrying the other man over his shoulder. This close, Katara finally recognized him as the waterbender who had performed at the feast yesterday. Master Pakku, Katara thought his name was. 

“Master Pakku!” Katara exclaimed in a voice that was huskier than she normally used, emerging from her hiding place. 

Pakku had gently rested the waterbender he was carrying on the ground, and had kneeled at his side. At Katara’s call, he jerked his head up. 

“What’re you doing here, boy!” he snapped. He threw his arm towards the safety of the city. “Get out of here!”

“I’m here to help!” Katara said. “You’re down a waterbender. _I’m _a waterbender.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Pakku growled. “Yoktau is down, Mikitok is—” 

The two other waterbenders skirted up to the shore and jogged up to Pakku. 

“Master!” one of them called. They were both in their early twenties. Katara thought they might be some of Pakku’s best students. “Is Yoktau—?”

Katara watched as Pakku made a specific hand motion over the fallen man’s mouth, and a stream of seawater curled from between the man’s lips. There was a tense, bated breath, before the fallen man started coughing, curling up onto his side. 

“He’s all right,” Pakku said, the relief palpable in his voice. 

“Who’s this?” one of Pakku’s students asked. 

“My name is Sokka,” Katara said. “I’m from the Southern Tribe.”

“Hey, I remember you,” the student said. “The boy from the feast.”

“And he should be leaving,” Pakku growled. “He’s basically twelve, and untrained. Useless. Get out of here before you get yourself killed.”

Katara wasn’t going to back down now, not after all she’s done to get here. “You _need _another bender! I was watching! Your team is crippled without a fifth member, don’t even lie!”

“So what!” Pakku yelled. “We’d be just as crippled with a useless boy!”

Katara brought her mouth up into a snarl. “I’m not _useless! _And I can damn well _prove _it to you, right here, right now!” She brought her hands up before her. “You show me any waterbending move, and I’ll copy it, _perfectly_, on the first try!”

It was, Katara thought to herself, an extremely large boast. She’d never been able to master a move that quickly, certainly not with her stolen waterbending scroll, and certainly not with any move she’d stumbled into creating herself. 

But for some reason, at that moment, she thought it was possible. 

“Hmph,” Pakku snorted derisively. “You think you can do it, boy? Let’s see you_ try!_”

He braced his legs and swung his arm in a sharp, fast, underhand arc, and a spiked wall of ice headed straight for Katara’s face. 

* * *

—

* * *

Sokka and Zuko were too late. Either Hahn or Tilliye’s ship had reached the surface and there was nothing they could do about it, besides surface themselves. Not something they were going to do, especially not now. 

“I mean, maybe they won’t notice it?” Tigi quietly offered. 

Almost as if Zhao himself was listening in, there was a sudden disturbance on the surface. Distantly, through the water, they heard shouting. It suddenly cut off. 

Zuko and Sokka stared up at the small shadow of that tiny boat. Nobody said a thing. 

Someone fell into the sea, his body a dark, loose shape. 

Zuko stood up and braced his boot against the side of their boat. “I’ll get him.”

He once again leaped into the cold embrace of the ocean. He swam upward, his body pulsing with tiny cold daggers, until he could catch the large man around the waist. He twisted the unresponsive man around until he could catch a glimpse of his face, but there, jutting out of his chest, was an arrow fletching. Dark beads of blood swirled in silver moonlight, catching on Zuko’s tongue. The man’s eyes were open and staring. 

Zuko dropped him. 

This time, he crawled up the side of their boat. 

“Lee,” Sokka said darkly. “That man, he—”

“Tilliye,” Zuko coughed. “Dead.”

Onar gasped. Tigi covered his face with his hands. 

“Dear Spirit of the Moon,” Payok cursed, his waterbending motions less sure, his face stricken. 

“Zhao knows we’re here,” Sokka said. “This isn’t going to be easy.” 

Zuko wiped some seawater off his face and desperately wished that he could do some firebending. But he couldn’t in that enclosed space, and especially not in front of the other warriors. Instead, he just shivered. 

Sokka watched him for a moment, his eyes distant. Then he barked, “C’mon, we need to get behind Zhao’s ship! Just because they’re looking for us now doesn’t mean they’re looking the right way! Everyone pick up your oars!”

They all picked up their oars. 

* * *

—

* * *

Master Pakku laid flat on his back. 

Katara stood across from him, her one arm raised in the underhanded follow-through arc. Her breath was elevated, but whether that was from bending or the pure adrenaline spiking through her veins, she couldn’t tell. 

“Believe me, _now?_” Katara growled. 

“Great Spirits,” one of the students whispered. 

“Shit, that’s a _prodigy_,” the other one hissed back. 

Pakku rolled himself to his feet, slowly dusting snow off his chest. He scowled down at her darkly. “You’re going to die.”

Katara’s vindictive smile slid off her face, like it had never been there in the first place.

“If you take a single misstep,” Pakku continued, his voice a dark, threatening hum. With each sentence, he took a step closer to Katara. “If you make a single mistake, you’re _dead._” Pakku stood right in front of her, towering over her head. “Nobody will try to save you. You’re fodder. You’re expendable. You’re _nothing._ You are here because no one else was, and for no other reason.”

Katara stared steadily up at him. “Yes,” she said. “I may be all those things.” She felt steel enter her veins, and it made her smirk. “But I’m here, aren’t I?”

A look of surprise took over Pakku’s face, but it was short-lived. 

He spun away from her. “Yoktau, get on your feet.”

The fallen waterbender used one of the other students, a man with chin-length brown hair, to help bring himself to his feet. 

“Ublar and Aitut. Get Sokka up to speed. You have five minutes.”

“Yes, Master!” the two men chorused. 

* * *

—

* * *

Zhao’s ship was larger than all the others. That was the fact that this entire scheme counted on— that Zhao’s arrogance, his conceit, would force him to travel in the ship that was largest, in the safest position. The ship that passed over them fit the criteria. An Empire-Class Warship, housing a thousand men. 

Sokka, Zuko, Onar, and Tigi all grabbed their own grappling hooks. 

“Payok,” Sokka ordered gravely, “Bring us up.”

Payok shifted his arms in a rising position, and their ship floated upwards, finally breaking the surface with a breath of wind that felt cold and fresh. Right in front of them, barely a meter away, was the black metal hull of the battlecruiser. 

Zuko spun the metal tip of the grappling hook. 

“Let’s do this,” Sokka said. 

The four of them threw their grappling hooks at the ship’s railing. Only Sokka and Zuko’s stuck on the first try, and the two of them steadily climbed up the side of the ship. 

Zuko’s recent experience with taking out battlecruisers had led him to swing himself over the railing with a wide kick of fire that would hopefully catch any soldier hidden from view, but it hit no one, because there was no one there. 

A much different experience than raiding with the Avatar, then. 

“Whoa, buddy,” Sokka said. “Cut it with the fireworks. This is a stealth mission.”

“I thought there would be someone there.”

Sokka busied himself with tying his grappling hook around his waist, and Zuko supposed he should do the same. 

Onar and Tigi had both barely breached the deck when Zuko heard shouting. 

Zuko and Sokka each grabbed one of the warriors by the arm and tugged them on board, kicking the grappling hooks off into the sea, and together the group rushed to hide behind the back of the large, towering accommodation. 

The shouting had come from soldiers carrying lanterns. Zuko listened to them, trying to count their number. Three. They must be part of the night watch. They thought they had heard something, and one of them was very on edge. A Water Tribe ship had gotten far too close to their ship, and it had appeared out of nowhere! Those Water Tribe freaks were up to something, that was for sure. The other two were more relaxed. They considered the small Water Tribe ship to be a fluke. 

They didn’t consider it a fluke when, right in front of the eyes of the night watch, three grappling hooks caught onto the ship’s railing. 

Hahn’s squadron. 

“Intruders!” one of the soldiers of the night watch screamed, and it seemed to echo around the ship before a loud klaxon rang out. A bell loudly tolling, waking every sleeping man on the ship supposedly housing over a thousand. 

“Great,” Sokka hissed. “I love this. Don’t you love this?”

* * *

—

* * *

Katara learned more waterbending in five minutes than she’d had in her entire life. Aitut was the student with the chin length brown hair, and Ublar had dark bangs. They showed her how to skim along the water. They showed her the maneuver to encase a battlecruiser in ice, and told her that she would always have the back right corner of the ship. Make sure that her ice connected with the ice of the person on either side of her. Never forget the bottom of the ship. Always target the propeller. Never stay in one place. 

If you stopped moving, even for a second, you died.

But Katara had asked, “But to do the move, don’t you need to stand still?”

“Exactly,” Aitut had said, with tired dark eyes. 

Ublar rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s when they’ll target you. So watch out.”

“Watch out,” Katara had said weakly. 

Pakku stood at the edge of the beach, staring out at the harbor, his hands on his hips. Distantly, there was a flash of bright orange, a firebenders strike, a trebuchet missile lit on fire, and it outlined Pakku’s stern form against the darkness. “We’ll give it a try, men,” he told them. The light disappeared, leaving an impression behind on Katara’s eyes. “It’s the only thing we can do.”

Yoktau, the one who had been hit by the prow of a ship, seemed to struggle to stand up straight, a wince on his face. Katara wondered if he had broken some of his ribs. But still, he was going out there. 

She thought about offering to try to heal him— healing, after all, was something she was fairly experienced in, after spending a week looking after the survivors of the Makapu catastrophe. But that might blow her cover.

“Follow my lead, boy,” Pakku told her. “Stay moving. Let’s go!”

Pakku leaped out onto the sea. Aitut and Ublar were right behind him, and Yoktau followed, a moment after. Lastly, Katara leaped after Yoktau, her brow furrowed in the most concentration she had ever exerted in her life. 

She couldn’t afford to fail, not for a single second. 

It was exhilarating. 

* * *

—

* * *

Zuko rushed the three soldiers of the night watch. He only had one sword, a scimitar, and its length was slightly longer than he was used to, but it was still more than enough to take out three men. He slashed once to cut a man’s heels, slashed twice to deflect a sword strike, and slashed a third time to take a man’s head off. 

The remaining man screamed, dropping his sword. The one who’d had his heels cut had collapsed onto the deck. Zuko kicked him in the stomach, and then grabbed the screaming man by his chest piece and threw him overboard. The man lying on the deck flipped onto his back and said, “Please, please, oh Agni, please.”

Zuko settled his sword under his chin. “Where is Zhao?”

“Agni, oh Agni. H-His room? Ah, shit. I— please.”

Zuko knocked the soldier’s helmet off with the tip of his sword. He stared down at the young soldier’s face, for some reason thinking that maybe Zuko knew him, from somewhere, but he was coming up blank. 

“Zhao is on this ship?” Zuko demanded. 

The young man frantically nodded his head.

Zuko peeked over the railing, and saw that Hahn’s men were halfway up the side of the hull. 

“What’s happening?” Hahn shouted up at him. 

Zuko pulled his head back, and looked down at the soldier. He tapped his sword against the man’s bared neck. “Where is Iroh?”

Zuko felt the soldier’s throat bob when he swallowed. “G-General Iroh?”

“Lee!” Sokka yelled behind him. “Get over here already, reinforcements are about to beat your _ass!” _

“Answer the question,” Zuko growled. 

Sokka grabbed his shoulder, and Zuko nearly slammed his elbow into his chest. 

“C’mon,” Sokka said, tugging on him. “_Now._”

Zuko wanted to spit at him, but he finally saw the soldiers rushing across the deck. He let himself get pulled away. 

Onar and Tigi had found an entrance to the accommodation, and Sokka and Zuko burst inside, taking an immediate left to ascend the stairs. Zuko pushed past the other two men to take the lead, just in case they encountered any soldiers along the way to the top. 

The ship was familiar to Zuko. He suddenly remembered breaking into it, weeks ago, in his quest to capture the Avatar. Zhao’s rooms were at the very top, with a connected study and a balcony. 

As he crested the last step, an arrow caught him right in the thigh. 

He dropped to his good knee, clutching at the arrow shaft with a snarl, and looked up to a full row of Yuyan archers, their bows drawn and primed. It was an unfortunately familiar situation. 

Onar and Tigi were right behind him, and Zuko heard Onar cry out, “Mr. Lee!”

“Get back!” Zuko yelled. 

“Oh, he’s not alone,” a low, unfortunately familiar drawl floated over to him. The man stepped out in front of the row of Yuyan, dressed impeccably in unblemished Fire Navy armor. “We’re definitely keeping _this _one alive. But the others?” Zhao waved his hand. “Unnecessary.”

Zuko heard the sound of soldiers’ footsteps marching up the stairs. He spared a look out of the corner of his eye, and saw both Onar and Tigi being forcefully restrained, their weapons knocked harmlessly to the ground, their arms being twisted behind their backs. 

Where was Sokka?

Zuko tried to stand up, and Zhao said, “Shoot him in his other leg.”

Another arrow sank into his other leg, before Zuko could even think to roll out of the way. He lost his balance and collapsed onto his side, but it wasn’t long before he started to push himself up onto his hands. 

“Oh, would someone please restrain him already,” Zhao sighed. “This is pitiful. Do be careful, though. He _bites.”_

Zuko had half a mind to rip Zhao’s head off. He felt hands grab him by the back of his tunic, and he rolled over onto his back, snarling up at the impersonal mask of a Fire Navy soldier. He painfully scrambled over to press his back against the ship’s metal wall. 

On his left side, he was hemmed in by the row of Yuyan. On the other, a row of Fire Navy soldiers, holding Onar and Tigi’s prone bodies in front of them like hostages. 

Well, clearly Zuko had just brazenly walked straight into a trap. 

And his uncle wasn’t even here. 

“Make any moves, firebender boy,” Zhao told him merrily, “And we’ll litter your companions with arrows. How about that?”

That same soldier that had tried to grab Zuko made another move for him, and Zuko reached for his sword. 

“Kill the one on the left,” Zhao said. 

An arrow sank straight into Onar’s eye. Zuko watched, as if it happened in slowed time, as the other man’s body slouched in the soldier’s hold. Then the soldier pushed his body forward, until it slapped face-first onto the floor, right in front of Zuko’s boots. 

Tigi screamed, but a soldier quickly slapped their hand over his mouth. The sound came out muffled, distant. 

This time, when the soldier made a grab for Zuko, he didn’t move. They dragged him into the center of the quarters and pushed him down onto his knees. 

The position was agony. Zuko couldn’t stop himself from yelling out, feeling more blood gush out of the two arrows still pinned in his legs. Zuko barely noticed it when they ripped his arms behind his back and kicked his sword across the room. In fact, his vision kept on fading out and fading in, so one moment Zhao was standing a few meters away, and then, in the next, he was right in front of him. 

He felt a hand on his chin, pushing his face up. “Look at me, firebender boy.” The grip was bruising, and it reminded Zuko of his father. Actually, maybe he was kneeling in front of his father right now. Maybe his father was telling him that— 

_“You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher.”_

But then the next second, it was just Zhao. 

Zhao smiled with too many teeth. “You should have killed me when you had the chance. You’re going to regret that every second for the rest of your miserable life. And you know what?” Zhao ran his thumb along Zuko’s jaw. “It’s not going to be a short one.”

* * *

—

* * *

Katara had been warned to ‘watch out,’ but watching out was very far from her mind when all her focus laid on just trying not to sink into the sea. She was in over her head. She knew that, and Master Pakku had to know that, and all his students had to know that, but there really was no other choice. 

She stuck close to Aitut, surfing in his wake. Occasionally, Aitut threw up a shield so fast that it registered more as a wave, and the arrows embedded in that ice shield quickly dunked into the water as they flew past, quick as a flash. Katara hadn’t even noticed they were being fired upon, and she doubled down on searching the sky for anything flying at them. 

They were quickly nearing their next target— the battlecruiser that had taken down the crucial fifth member of Pakku’s team. And now Katara was supposed to take that man’s place, like she was any kind of substitute. 

“Go, Sokka!” Aitut yelled at her, throwing his arm out toward his right, and Katara was forced to split off from him. 

She skirted around the side of the ship, heart in her throat. Her eyes locked on her position— back right corner. Back right corner. 

She felt something like wind pass near the back of her head, and tried not to think about it. Back right corner. 

When she arrived, she drew herself to a stop, and then immediately threw up a shield. _That’s when they’ll target you. _Her ice splintered as arrow after arrow sank into it. She didn’t manage to catch them midair, not like Aitut, but at least none of them had hit her. At least she was still alive. 

Then it came time to encase her section of the ship in ice. 

And to do that, she had to take down her shield. 

She knew her movements were sloppy. She knew that they were slow and uncoordinated. Unpracticed. But she still did them. She still felt the second that her ice connected with the ice of the person on either side of her, the last section of ice needed to completely incapacitate the ship. 

It worked. It really had worked. 

She didn’t give herself time to celebrate. 

She felt more fluttering of wind as she raced back towards where she last saw Aitut. Katara tried to move unevenly, unpredictably, because she wouldn’t be able to notice an arrow flying at her. 

She tried not to be too relieved to be skimming along in Aitut’s wake again. 

There was very little talking, but that didn’t mean that it was quiet. The waves were loud all around them, and in the distance, there was screaming. Katara thought she could hear her own heartbeat. 

It was time to do it all over again. 

The second ship was also a success. Katara felt the strain in all her muscles, a pure stress-related fatigue. But she didn’t even think of stopping. She could do this. She was getting lucky. She was going to help protect these people— People like kind-hearted Tuwari and her two children. They didn’t deserve to die. Katara couldn’t bear it. Because that would be just like—_her mother— _No. That would be worse than Makapu. 

The third ship was where her luck ran out. 

She was on her way to her position— back right corner— when an arrow sank straight through her left arm. She must have cried out, but she couldn’t even hear herself as she sank straight into the terrible cold of the sea. The shock only froze her for a second, and then the panic had her ripping herself out to the surface. 

She couldn’t move her arm at all, and that was terrifying. 

Aitut was suddenly there, right in front of her, and he roughly grabbed her and hugged her to his chest, standing on his own ice platform. 

“Shit,” Aitut hissed, hiding Katara in front of him, his back to the warship. 

“No,” Katara tried to get out, but she couldn’t, not when Aitut’s breath suddenly hitched. In the silver light of the moon, the blood that trickled out of his mouth was black. 

The ice underneath them didn’t immediately melt, but Aitut still fell, the heavy weight of his body pressing down on Katara. By some miracle, Katara didn’t immediately collapse, barely holding his weight with her one good arm. She felt his body jerk as another arrow sank into it. 

“No!” Katara cried. 

She felt suffocated. She felt like she was drowning but she was clearly above water. 

“Boy!” came Master Pakku’s voice. 

Katara couldn’t make herself look behind her. A large ice shield came into being in her periphery, blocking off the battlecruiser, and even then, Katara couldn’t bear to make herself let go of Aitut. 

Pakku did that for her. Aitut’s body was harshly torn backwards, leaving Katara alone on the last ice platform that Aitut had ever made. 

“Ublar! Yoktau!” Pakku screamed. “Take the boy and retreat! Get him healing!”

“Master!” Ublar yelled back. “You can’t—!”

“Go!” Pakku was throwing his arm back towards the shore, pointing the way. “No more of my students die today! No more!” 

“Master, please!” Ublar begged. It sounded like he was crying. “If you stay here alone, you’ll die!”

“How _dare _you talk back to me,” Pakku grounded out. “Don’t you dare make me have to say another word!”

The sudden absence of shouting was heart-wrenching. Ublar grabbed her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder, her left arm dangling over his back, her coat darkening with blood. 

“No,” Katara tried to say, but no sound came out. 

As Ublar and Yoktau skated towards the shore, she saw Pakku’s singular form grow smaller and smaller in the distance. Why was he staying? Why, she asked herself. Why couldn’t he come with them? 

If Katara hadn’t been there, would Aitut still be dead? She’d hardly known him, but he’d died for her, hadn’t he? 

“No,” she said again. 

She couldn’t see Master Pakku anymore. Ublar continued to sob, choking on harsh, stuttered breaths. 

* * *

—

* * *

Sokka was a step behind Onar and Tigi when someone grabbed him by the arm and shoved him through a doorway in the stairwell. He struck out wildly with his fists, but the person holding him was unreasonably strong, and shoved his face straight into the wall, a tough hand pressing against the back of his head. 

“What do you want?” Sokka growled. 

“To save my nephew,” the man said evenly, releasing his hold on Sokka. 

Sokka spun around, hand on his boomerang, and came face to face with Zuko’s uncle. Sokka’s experience with the man was limited to that one morning, weeks ago, when he woke up from a sickness to Zuko pouring water on his face and telling him that Aang had been captured. Zuko’s uncle had been wearing Fire Nation armor, at the time, and now was no different, though now it looked different. Fancier, maybe. Sokka remembered that Zuko had told him that his name was General Fon. He remembered that his tea was very good. 

“You just missed him,” Sokka said blandly, pointing back at the door to the stairwell. 

“I know.” Zuko’s uncle glanced up and down the hallway they were standing in, seemingly checking for any eavesdroppers. “Knowing my nephew, he is running straight to Admiral Zhao. And knowing Zhao, he will not be caught by surprise.”

“But if it’s just Zhao,” Sokka started to say. 

“It is not just Zhao,” Zuko’s uncle snapped. “There will be a whole squadron of Yuyan archers, ready and waiting.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Sokka made a move for the door. 

Zuko’s uncle placed a restraining hand on Sokka’s chest. “I would think that you, young man, know better than to run blindly into a dangerous situation.”

Sokka brazenly knocked Zuko’s uncle’s hand away. “If they’re in danger, then I’m not just going to leave them there!”

There was a short, heart-wrenching scream, coming from above. It barely lasted for a second before it cut off. 

Sokka felt his blood run cold. 

Subconsciously, Sokka and Zuko’s uncle had both looked up, drawn to the sound, but now their eyes fell and met. For an older man, Zuko’s uncle was oddly intense, his eyes sharp like a well-honed sword. He felt dangerous, but not in the same way that Zuko felt dangerous. If Zuko was a raging polar leopard, then this man was a cliff in pitch darkness— something you didn’t see until it was too late. 

“We need a distraction,” Zuko’s uncle said. 

Another sound drew their attention to the door. It wasn’t the yell of someone in pain, but rather the yell of a warrior running into battle— and there wasn’t just one of them. 

As soon as the sound faded a bit, Sokka burst open the door and caught the receding image of the blue-clad back of one of Hahn’s men dashing up the staircase. 

“I think we’ve got that covered,” Sokka said. Tui and La, it was going to be a bloodbath. And not, unfortunately, for their side.

“Let’s make it count,” Zuko’s uncle said, clapping him on the shoulder, and then made his way up the stairs right after them. 

Sokka pulled out his boomerang, keeping it ready in one hand, and followed after him. 

The carnage was obvious as soon as they turned the corner and stood on the last landing before the top floor. Three Fire Navy bodies were splayed over the top of the staircase, their blood dripping downwards, cascading into a pool at the bottom. There came the sound of clinking metal, yelling, men shouting out. Sokka could faintly make out, from his position at the bottom of the landing, moving bodies of blue intertwined with uniforms of red. 

The top floor of the accommodation was now a tight box filled with too many angry men with weapons, and somewhere in there were Sokka’s men. He wasn’t worried about Zuko, but the other two made him concerned, despite the fact that Sokka was much younger than them. They just seemed out of their depth. 

As he watched, one of Hahn’s warriors fell backwards and joined the bodies of the Fire Navy soldiers, an arrow’s fletching sticking out of his neck. 

“We can’t go up there,” Sokka said, his eyes wide. “There’s got to be another way!”

“This is a ship, not a palace,” Zuko’s uncle said. “Unless you want to climb up the side of the accommodation— this is it.”

Sokka slapped his hand to the grappling hook around his waist. “Great idea, c’mon!”

Sokka ran in the other direction. After a second, Zuko’s uncle followed him. 

Out on the deck, Sokka hadn’t accounted for more Fire Navy soldiers to be standing guard, though he really should have thought of that. 

Zuko’s uncle, on the other hand, _had _accounted for it. 

In one slick maneuver, Zuko’s uncle twisted Sokka’s arm behind his back. “I have this one!” he exclaimed. “But hurry, the Admiral is getting out-numbered!”

The two of them shuffled out of the way of the new stream of soldiers entering the accommodation. 

“Isn’t that going to make it _worse?_” Sokka hissed. 

“Well,” Zuko’s uncle said wearily. “It can’t become _much _worse.”

There was a loud popping noise, like breaking glass, and they looked up, catching sight of a bloom of fire blowing out a window. 

It wasn’t very promising. 

Sokka’s target was Zhao’s balcony. It stood a clear ten meters up, which was about as far as it took to climb up the hull. It would be easier, even, since the accommodation had windows and grooves to use as footholds. He flung the grappling hook, and it caught on the first try. Sokka tested its strength once, and tried not to think about what he was going to do when he got up there, because it made his stomach turn. 

“What about you?” Sokka asked. 

Zuko’s uncle looked pensive. “I will follow after you.”

An old guy like that, climbing up a ten meter sheer cliff? Well, Sokka didn’t have time to doubt him. He got to climbing. 

As he approached the balcony, the sounds of battle grew louder. He heard the _fwhp _of arrows being leased, yelling, a voice, barking orders— “_Don’t just stand there, shoot, you idiots!”_

Sokka took a small peek over the balcony’s railing. The battle hadn’t reached that far back into the room. He could see the armored backs of a line of Yuyan archers, and not much beyond them, where the real battle raged on. But behind the line of archers, and closest to Sokka, was the man himself. Zhao. And at his feet, lying on his side in a pool of his own blood, was Zuko. 

Sokka really should have been worried about Zuko. 

He didn’t seem to be moving. 

Sokka thought very fast. His other two men, Onar and Tigi, were nowhere to be seen. There were more than ten Yuyan in the room— way more than Sokka could hope to take out. The longer he waited, the more Hahn’s men would die, and Hahn’s men were the only people stopping Zhao’s forces from turning their entire attention onto Sokka. And there were only six of them! Five, after seeing that man’s body on the stairway. Probably less, now. Time was rapidly running out. 

He had some options here. 

The first option was to throw his boomerang at the back of Zhao’s neck. That would surely kill him. That, Sokka knew, was the whole point of the damn mission in the first place. Every man had known that going in. Sokka had no qualms about doing it, too— except, well. If he did that, then he would have to leave Zuko behind. In the interim seconds it would take for Sokka to dash over to Zuko, a Yuyan archer was sure to notice Zhao’s sudden silence, and then Sokka would be littered with arrows. 

Every man on this mission had come prepared to die. Sokka knew that. But not Zuko. No— Zuko was here because Sokka had metaphorically twisted his arm. He’d peer pressured him. The guy had been injured from tagging along with Aang during the day, fighting soldier after soldier for untold hours, and yet Sokka had still taken him along, because Sokka _liked _having him along. Put it any way you want, that was selfish. 

If Sokka left Zuko here to die, then Zuko’s death would be on _Sokka’s_ hands. 

Maybe this was a selfish decision, too. Sokka thought of his father, briefly. He wondered what his dad would do, right now, but he could barely remember talking with the man. The only thing he could remember was Bato, telling him that he was proud of him. It didn’t matter, anyways. 

Sokka wouldn’t be able to live with himself if Zuko died, and that was all there was to it. 

That left only one option. Grab and _go. _

He swung himself over the railing as silently as he could. 

The timing would have to be this— 

Sokka crept up behind Zhao and swung his club at the back of his head. 

Sokka grabbed Zuko’s robe and half-dragged half-carried him toward the balcony. 

Then Zuko’s uncle literally flew into the room with fire spewing from his feet, which wasn’t in Sokka’s plan at all, and caused enough of a commotion that nearly every Yuyan spun around in place. 

Even worse, Zhao’s head was apparently made out of steel, because he didn’t even fall, just hunched his shoulders. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sokka grumbled, shifting his grip to clutch an unresponsive Zuko under his arms. 

The Yuyan fired. 

Zhao screamed, “_General Iroh!_”

Zuko’s uncle spun his arms, and suddenly there was a thick, furious wall of fire barely ten centimeters away from Zuko’s trailing foot. Sokka hurriedly dragged them both further away from it. 

Zuko’s uncle dropped his stance and the fire started to dissipate. Some arrows flew by, but they didn’t hit any of them. The other man plucked Zuko from Sokka’s arms like he weighed nothing, hefting Zuko’s limb body over his shoulder, and then leaped straight over the balcony, leaving Sokka alone with enemies to his back. He wanted to say something like, “Thanks. I’ll just walk home, I guess,” but there really was no time for passive aggressive quips, as much as he wished there was. 

Sokka leaped over the balcony to grab the rope trailing from his grappling hook. He wasn’t naive enough to think that he had enough time to safely reach the deck before they discovered the hook and maybe lit it on fire, and so he half-slid half-fell down the side of the accommodation. When he reached the deck, he heavily fell on his side, his arm crushed painfully under his weight, but he didn’t think he broke anything besides, like, a rib. And his dignity. 

Zhao’s voice trailed down to them, “_Don’t let them escape alive!”_

“It’s time to escape alive!” Sokka said, pushing himself to his feet. Zuko’s uncle had waited for him on the deck, at least, and together they made their way to the part of the ship’s railing where Sokka had originally climbed up. He clutched the railing and searched the dark sea below for any spot of variation that would show that Payok was still there. 

Distantly below, Sokka caught the sight of a man waving. He nearly sobbed with relief. 

“Go do your fire-flying magic bullshit,” Sokka said, waving his hand at Zuko’s uncle, who was also looking at the man far below in the sea. 

“Of course,” he said smoothly, and then shot off into the air with the sound of a thundering furnace. Sokka shook his head in mild disbelief. Could _Zuko _do that?

Sokka turned around to the sound of soldiers fast approaching his location. 

Sokka threw up a victory sign. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up? Busy night?”

He took a step backwards until he was pressed up against the railing. 

“Nobody feeling chatty?” Sokka said. “That’s a shame. I’m sure normally you’re all beacons of sunshine.”

A couple of soldiers came to a halt, seamlessly moving through a firebender’s kata. In less than a second, no less than three streams of fire would roast him alive. 

Sokka flipped over the railing. “Later.”

Sokka wasn’t a bender. He couldn’t keep himself warm with firebending like Zuko. He couldn’t catch himself on the ocean like Katara. He didn’t have some weird immunity to the cold like Aang. When he plunged into the ocean, there was a real chance he would die, and quickly. 

He fell scant meters away from Payok’s ship, a desolate cold wrapping around his body. 

He spluttered to the surface, clawing at the lip of their slightly oversized canoe, and dragged his cold, drenched form inside, shivering. He ended up squashing himself next to Zuko’s limp form. Some hair had escaped his wolftail, and those strands were plastered to his face. 

“Payok,” he managed to say. “We need to get out of here.”

He dragged his head up to look at him, and luckily, there was the older waterbender with the smattering of facial hair, but he looked to be in a fighting stance.

“Sokka,” his voice shook, “This _firebender _just landed on our ship!”

“No!” Sokka barked, dragging himself up to a sitting position. “He’s an ally!”

“An ally?” Payok said uncertainly. “Sokka, where’s the rest—”

“I don’t know!” Sokka’s own voice shook, partly from the cold, partly from frustration. “But if we don’t hide ourselves now, we won’t get to find out!”

Payok shot a nervous look up at Zhao’s ship. He didn’t need to be told twice, and soon their canoe sank beneath the surface of the sea, plunged back into the murky dark of the ocean at night. 

Sokka dragged himself up to sit next to Zuko’s uncle. After some maneuvering, they arranged Zuko so that he was leaning his back against one of Sokka and his uncle’s legs, secured in the middle of the ship. Sokka could faintly make out the shape of two arrow shafts sticking out of each of Zuko’s thighs. They’d shot him in the legs?

Sokka distantly remembered the fact that Zhao knew who Zuko was. 

“This is quite something,” Zuko’s uncle said mildly. 

Sokka unstrapped his leather armor and threw it behind him. He pulled off his overcoat and added it to the pile, leaving him in just his robe. It would have to do. 

“Pick up an oar,” Sokka said to Zuko’s uncle. “We have a long way to go.”

Sokka barely caught Payok’s quick, suspicious look. 

“This looks bad, doesn’t it?” Sokka snapped at him. He and Zuko’s uncle started to slide their oars through the surrounding water. It would be much slower, with just the two of them. “I bet you’re asking yourself if you can trust me.”

“All I know,” Payok said evenly, his voice slowly rising with rancor, “Is that you left with two men of my Tribe, and came back with none of them and a _firebender_.”

“You think I’m a traitor, then?” Sokka asked harshly. “You think I would plan all of this just to get everyone killed?”

“I think— I think that you’re an outsider.”

It was very quiet, in their underwater bubble. Sokka could hear their own breathing, his own heartbeat. His arm shook when he brought it down into the water to row. He couldn’t help but think that this mission was doomed from the start. It made him feel tired. 

“I’m not the enemy here,” Sokka said. “But if it’ll make you feel any better to throw me into a jail cell, then by all means— ” it came out sounding like a dare, “I’d like to see you try.”

They continued on into the darkness of the sea, cloaked in silence. 

* * *

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for introducing so many characters at once- hopefully it wasn’t confusing! Here’s a list, just in case. 
> 
> PLOT A: ZUKO AND SOKKA
> 
> Inka \- A so-called Water Healer. A young woman with short, chin-length brown hair. Scared of Zuko. Anxious. Works for the Palace. Friends with Yue. 
> 
> Tilliye\- A very tall Water Tribe warrior. Late twenties. Well-respected by peers. Stood up for Sokka in Part II. Leading one third of Sokka’s mission. DECEASED. 
> 
> Hahn \- Yue’s betrothed. Son of Manirak, the Northern Water Tribe’s so-called ‘War Minister.’ Leads one third of Sokka’s mission. PRESUMED DECEASED. 
> 
> Onar \- Tall and Lanky Water Tribe warrior. Zuko’s fanboy. DECEASED. 
> 
> Tigi \- Short and stout Water Tribe warrior. Zuko’s fanboy. Very shy. PRESUMED DECEASED. 
> 
> Payok \- Waterbender in Sokka’s squad. Has a goatee. Doesn’t like fighting. Nervous. 
> 
> PLOT B: KATARA
> 
> Tuwari \- Northern Water Tribe mother of two young girls. A waterbender. Fairly young. Good at keeping calm. 
> 
> Mikitok \- Pakku’s student. Killed by a spear. DECEASED. 
> 
> Aitut \- Pakku’s student. Chin length brown hair. Tired dark eyes. DECEASED. 
> 
> Ublar \- Pakku’s student. Dark bangs. 
> 
> Yoktau \- Pakku’s student. Got run over by a ship. Broken ribs. 


	15. Wanted: The Moon Spirit, Tui - Part V

Eventually, it became morning. The sun finally peeked his head above the horizon, looking down upon the carnage that his children had wrought. And what carnage it was— splayed out in the Palace’s basement, injured warriors and civilians alike, side by side. The Palace offered such little refuge. A mere veneer of protection from the horrors of the war going on just outside its doors. 

Yue had been told, many times, that she should get some rest, but she had never managed it. The very idea seemed impossible. Not while her people suffered and died. Not while her father risked his life. Not while she could do nothing about it. 

She spent her time with Avatar Aang’s lemur, at Avatar Aang’s bedside. She contemplated the boy’s slack face, his brow, even in sleep, furrowed. This boy had done so much for her people. She had heard stories of Lee and the Avatar’s battles, how they had single-handedly taken down battlecruiser after battlecruiser. Lee must be some kind of crazy warrior from the Earth Kingdom, she heard them say. Or maybe even a spirit, taken human form. Yue found these rumors, in particular, kind of amusing. 

Her mind flashed to how Lee had looked when he’d stumbled inside their chamber, soaked in blood and water, his clothing tattered, his breathing labored. His hair had fallen across his face, making it so that you could barely make out one dragon-gold eye. He’d looked dangerous, but worn. Beaten. 

She couldn’t help comparing herself to him, and how undamaged she was. How pristine— how useless. Lee knew nothing of her people. He’d scarcely known them for more than a day, and yet he had risked his life for their safety. Yue was nothing, in comparison. And she loved her people with a passion that blinded her, at times. 

Avatar Aang let out a small groan, and Yue immediately focused her attention on him. The boy slowly blinked his eyes open, reaching up to rub his forehead. His lemur jumped from Yue’s shoulder and settled on the Avatar’s chest, curling up into a ball. 

“Hi, Momo,” the Avatar murmured, stroking its ears. 

“Good morning, Avatar Aang,” Yue said. She hoped that she didn’t sound tired. 

“Princess Yue?” The Avatar blinked at her. He slowly rose up on his cot, pushing himself into a seat. He glanced around the room, at the injured men and women in the surrounding cots, at families huddled together in groups. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the Palace,” Yue said. “You were injured. Lee carried you inside.”

“Lee?” The Avatar frowned at her. “Where is he? Where’s— Sokka? Katara?”

She shook her head, and it hurt her to do so. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I haven’t seen any of them in a while.”

“A while,” the Avatar repeated, collapsing his face into his hands. His voice came out muffled when he asked, “How long have I…?”

“It’s morning now.”

“And,” the Avatar started to say, but he paused. “And the invasion?”

Yue clasped her hands in her lap. “They haven’t yet broken into the city.”

The Avatar didn’t say anything to that, and Yue let him have his silence. 

Eventually, the Avatar cleared his throat and pulled his face up to look at her. “I’m sorry,” he told her, in a small voice. “I wasn’t able to stop it.”

Yue watched as tears started to bead in the Avatar’s eyes, and she thought, _No, you did everything. You did so much. I’m the one at fault. I’m the one who has done nothing. Please, if anyone should cry, it should be me. _

She reached out and settled her hand on the Avatar’s knee. “Please, Avatar Aang.” She wasn’t sure what she was asking him for. “I don’t blame you. This isn’t your fault.”

“It is,” the Avatar choked out. “I’m the bridge between worlds. I’m the Avatar.”

Yue tightened her mouth. “There was nothing you could have done.” She wasn’t sure who she was really talking to, now— herself, or the Avatar. “Please, Avatar Aang. Don’t blame yourself. You did all that you could have done.” She squeezed the Avatar’s knee. “You’re just a man. A man with some power, yes, but you can’t fix everything. Sometimes, power— Well, it just creates more problems.”

Now Yue was sure she wasn’t making much sense, but the Avatar wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, sniffling. When he spoke, his voice came out hoarse. “That’s— Princess Yue, you’re right.”

“I am?” she asked dubiously. 

“I’m just a man,” the Avatar said. Yue personally thought that she should have said ‘boy’, but she couldn’t take it back now. Gradually, the Avatar seemed to gain energy, as an idea seemed to strike him. “But I can talk to people who aren’t!”

“Like, women?” Yue asked. 

“Like spirits!” the Avatar exclaimed. 

Yue made a little ‘O’ with her mouth. Well, that should have been obvious. Still, it made Yue a bit wary. “You’re going to ask the spirits for assistance?”

The Avatar pushed himself fully off his cot. He stood in front of her, idly stretching out his arms. His clothing was just as tattered as Lee’s had been, still bloodstained in parts. Yet Yue knew that he was as close to being completely healed as he was going to get, in such a short amount of time. “Yeah! If anyone knows what I need to do, it’s got to be the spirits.”

“I see,” Yue said slowly, her mind churning. “There is a place near the Palace. A place that has been touched by the spirits. If that is something that may help you.”

“Yeah!” the Avatar said, raising his fists excitedly. “Yes, that’s exactly it!”

Yue’s brows lowered in resolute determination. This was it. This was what she could do, and no one was going to stop her. “I can take you there.”

* * *

—

* * *

Ublar and Yoktau took Katara towards a hastily bended pavilion right near the entrance to the city. It was humming with people, what seemed to her like hundreds of warriors milling around it, rushing inside and outside, carrying injured men between themselves, sometimes carried on gurneys, sometimes thrown over someone’s shoulder. Much like how Katara herself was thrown over Ublar’s shoulder. 

When they neared it, Katara rammed her only working elbow into Ublar’s back, and snarled, “I can _walk._”

Ublar seemed to only grit his teeth, letting out a low grunt. “Just let me get you inside. Just let me do this.”

It was only because Katara wasn’t entirely certain that she _could_ walk, as light-headed as she felt, that she allowed it. 

They joined the stream of people passing into the pavilion, and it quickly became clear that this was where nearly every waterbending healer in the city had gathered together, administering to the warriors that returned from their ships with injuries, and then sending them out again. 

Ublar finally set her down on a shabbily thrown together futon, perhaps the only free one, in that overcrowded section of the building, divided by hanging pelts. To her right was a man with a burn wound that blackened his entire arm. To her left was a man with bandages covering nearly his entire face, leaving just his mouth. 

Ublar kneeled in front of her, and she finally saw his swollen eyes, the tears that wore a track down the dirt that had managed to stain his face. 

“Sokka,” Ublar told her, “I’m going to try to bend as much water off you as I can, all right? So the cold doesn’t get you.”

Katara hesitantly brought a shaking hand to the arrow that still pierced her left arm. She nodded. 

“I’m going to get Yugoda,” Yoktau said, hunched in place, clutching his stomach. He was clearly in a lot of pain. “This is for Master Pakku, she has to do it.”

“Just go,” Ublar said. “He needs help. Master Pakku said,” his voice caught. “He said that he doesn’t want any more of his students dying.”

Yoktau gave a jerky nod, and disappeared behind a pelt. 

With his own shaky movements, Ublar started to bend the salt water out of Katara’s drenched clothing. Her newly shorn hair dried up, unplastering itself from her head. Ublar added the water to the walls of the pavilion, freezing it into place with a twist of his wrist. 

Then came Yugoda’s voice, coated in a sharpness that Katara hadn’t ever expected of the kind woman who had been leading a healing class only yesterday morning. “—that stupid old man? Is he trying to get himself killed?”

Yoktau’s voice was timid, by comparison. “Master Pakku was only trying to—”

Ublar stood and stepped off to the side, and Katara met Yugoda’s eyes. The older woman’s grey hair was fraying out of the tie at the back of her head, and her eyes were tight with exhaustion. They tightened further when she saw Katara. 

“Katara?” Yugoda asked, completely dismayed. Her fast walk dwindled into a slow shuffle, her hand reaching up to clutch at her heart. “Katara, my dear, what has happened to you?”

Katara guiltily shifted her gaze to Ublar, and saw the confusion flash across his face. She cleared her throat. “Yeah, sorry, I’m not actually a boy.”

“Katara,” Yugoda demanded, “What have you _done?”_

Katara was tired, and in pain, and every time she blinked she saw Aitut’s slack face, and so the only emotion that she could conjure was anger, an anger that made her spit, “What does it _matter,_ Yugoda? If all you’re good for is_ healing_, then why don’t you start _healing_ me!”

“That’s enough out of you,” Yugoda snarled. “This crazy stunt could’ve killed more than just yourself, you idiot girl.”

Katara’s jaw was tight. “Don’t you think I know that?” _Don’t you think that’s already happened?_

“I think you’re full of yourself, an arrogant, conceited little girl—”

“Yugoda,” Ublar begged, his quiet voice effectively cutting her off mid-rant. “Please stop. Please don’t blame her.”

Yoktau cut in, “The Master would have done this no matter who was there, Yugoda.”

“We might all be dead if it wasn’t for— Katara,” Ublar said. “She’s an amazing waterbender, and she was there. When no one else was.”

“She’s a warrior,” Yoktau said. 

“She’s one of us,” Ublar said. 

Katara felt whiplash from shifting her gaze back and forth between Master Pakku’s students, from hearing words that she had never expected to hear from a man of the Northern Water Tribe. She felt like she should be weeping, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything other than sit there, clutching her sluggishly bleeding arrow wound. 

Yugoda seemed to deflate, her anger washing away, becoming what it always was, at heart— worry. She kneeled down in front of Katara, roughly settling her robes on the cold ground. She gently tugged Katara’s hand away from her wound, Katara’s small one in her larger, well-worn palm. “I don’t know how you did it,” Yugoda told her. “But I suppose a warrior will always find a way to be a warrior.”

“I just,” Katara sighed out, “I just wanted to help.”

“Bless your heart,” Yugoda said. “It’ll get you killed one day.”

As Yugoda studied the arrow in Katara’s arm, likely thinking of a way to remove it that wouldn’t bleed Katara to death, Katara caught the sight of a couple of figures moving through the pavilion, passing in and out of sight behind pelts and rushing warriors. The figures caught her eye, because underneath a hastily thrown blue leather armor piece and coat, both ill-fitting, there was the burnished red of Fire Navy armor. Her heart caught in her throat. 

Fire Nation? Here? She tried to keep track of the man— but again he passed out of sight. 

She tried to push herself to her feet. Yugoda grabbed her by the good shoulder and pinned her to the cot. “Stay still! You’ve lost a lot of blood, you shouldn’t be moving! If I don’t heal this arm, you may _lose it, _you hear me?”

Panic drew Katara back to Yugoda’s face, the bead of sweat that curled down the older woman’s forehead. “Sorry,” Katara said. “I thought I saw a— a soldier.”

“You need to rest,” Yugoda said firmly. “The Fire Nation hasn’t broken into the city. You’re safe here.”

Katara swallowed. It was safe here? No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t safe anywhere, especially not Katara’s village, all those years ago. The Fire Nation broke in, just like they would break in here, and then they would kill and steal people away to rot like living corpses.

“This is going to hurt, dear, so please lie still.” Yugoda brought her hand up to Katara’s forehead, and the cool water felt nice, like a warm breeze off the ocean. She hardly had the time to think that she needed to send someone to find that soldier before she was asleep. 

* * *

—

* * *

Payok snuck Sokka, Zuko’s uncle, and Zuko’s prone body through the Water Tribe’s healer’s pavilion like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be doing it, but he couldn’t think of doing anything else. Sokka was thankful that the older man hadn’t tried to bury them in a snow hill or hand them off to Chief Arnook like the traitors Payok surely thought they were. 

So he was thankful (with Zuko bleeding out and unconscious, it would have been hard, you could say, to also fend off a waterbender dead set on thinking that you were responsible for murdering his tribesmen), but unsurprised. Sokka had Payok pegged as a non-combatant from the moment he’d first laid his eyes on him. Payok wouldn’t make any moves if he could help it. 

Now, the Water Tribe’s healer’s pavilion.

Sokka’s only frame of reference was the Palace, the calm, hushed panic of people bunkering down from a storm. The healer’s pavilion was worlds away from that. If the Palace was the place you went to hide, _this_ was where you went to war. 

The throngs of warriors and healers barely spared them a glance. They were three beat-up men carrying an injured man, just like everyone else. Zuko’s uncle had even thrown on Sokka’s overcoat and armor, and had ditched his Fire Nation hair-pin, letting his white hair around his face. 

As soon as they got in, an older woman, streaks of grey in her dark hair, dragged them into a scant open space on the icy ground, and directed them to place Zuko down. 

Another woman, jogging past, threw a thread-bare blanket over Sokka’s shoulders. When Sokka turned around to see who had done it, she had already disappeared through the injured crowd. 

The water healer wasted no time in preparing to rip out the arrows from Zuko’s thighs. “Hold him down,” she barked. 

Sokka and Zuko’s uncle exchanged a look, and then settled themselves on either side of Zuko, using their whole weight to pin each of Zuko’s arms to the cot. Sokka got the right. Zuko’s uncle got the left. Sokka thought for a moment, thought about Zuko’s occasional displays of ridiculous strength, and then yelled, “Payok, pin his feet!”

The waterbender had been staying back, nervously hugging his arms to his chest, but at Sokka’s words he stuttered into action. 

“One of those guys, huh?” the water healer said, to no one in particular. “Hold him steady, I’m going to freeze the gash as soon as the arrow’s out.” 

Sokka split his weight between Zuko’s bicep and shoulder. 

The water healer grasped the arrowshaft and ripped it out of Zuko’s leg. 

Zuko screamed. His head reared up, his whole body straining to tear itself off the floor, and Sokka strained to press him down harder, to keep him from slipping out. Payok was clutching desperately at Zuko’s boots, and Zuko’s uncle grimaced. Zuko’s hands scraped at the floor, nails ripping into the cot. 

The water healer had a look of intense concentration on her face as she pressed both hands over the gaping wound in Zuko’s leg. Sokka couldn’t say how long she sat like that, sweat beading down her face. 

Zuko had stopped trying to tear himself off the floor, and now he was limp, panting up at the pavilion’s ceiling. His eyes were open, but Sokka couldn’t tell if he was seeing anything. 

Zuko’s uncle started speaking to him. “Nephew, it’s going to be all right. You’re getting healed right now. You’re safe. I am here with you. Did you hear that? I am here with you.”

Zuko blinked, his eyes widening. His voice came out hoarse, “Uncle?”

“I’m here,” Zuko’s uncle said softly. “It’s all right.”

“Second one!” the water healer suddenly barked. “Everyone ready!”

Sokka was not even remotely ready, but he nodded anyways. 

This time, when Zuko screamed, it was quieter, like he was trying to stop it from coming out. That sounded a lot like something Zuko would do, and Sokka was almost giddy from the fact that he had woken up. That he _would _wake up. 

(Sokka didn’t know what he’d do with himself if Zuko wouldn’t— 

Sokka threw away _Zhao_ just to save Zuko’s life and if he hadn’t—

It was Sokka’s plan that had gotten everyone killed—) 

The water healer with the grey-stained hair tossed the bloodied arrows haphazardly on the ground. She got to work on the second wound, the previous one iced over.

“Uncle?” Zuko rasped again. His head lolled to the side, and he must have seen Sokka, because he furrowed his brow. “Sokka?”

“Hey there, buddy,” Sokka said weakly. 

“You’re not dead.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Zuko’s brow furrowed. “You… _are _dead?”

“No!” Sokka hurried to say. “Alive, alive as I can be. I’ve got blood and everything.”

“But whose blood is it?”

Man, Zuko was barely making any sense, but Sokka was so glad that he was awake and saying nonsense that he said, “You really think I’m going around stealing people’s blood?”

Zuko furrowed his brow deeper, as if he really needed to think about that one. 

Zuko’s uncle, unbelievably, let out a low chuckle. 

This caused Zuko to loll his head back the other way, and rasp, “Uncle? Where am I?”

“The Northern Water Tribe. A medic tent, as far as I understand it,” Zuko’s uncle said. 

Sweat dotted Zuko’s brow. “Zhao?”

“He’s still alive,” Sokka answered. Zuko turned his rapidly clearing gaze onto Sokka, like his eyes were a ball bouncing back and forth. Sokka tried for a laugh, but he knew that it didn’t really work. “That bastard’s sturdier than he looks.”

At this point, Zuko tried to shift his arm, and he must have finally realized that three different people were pining him to the ground. 

The water healer drew her hands away from the second gash in his leg. “He’s not going to bleed out,” she announced. “I’ll grab someone to sew the wounds closed. I have to move on. Don’t let him move!” She shoved herself to her feet, and then vanished down the line of cots with a backwards wave. 

Zuko’s breath stuttered out his chest. “Why are you— holding me— down.”

“Let go of him!” Zuko’s uncle barked, and Sokka shifted back on his heels, tearing his hands away. Payok took a second to comply, and then he was standing up and resuming his awkward hovering. 

Sokka tugged his blanket tighter around his shoulders. 

They all took a moment to let themselves breathe. There was shouting all around them, distant screams and grunts, yells of “Move,” or “Get out of the way!” or “Someone help him!” Occasionally, the ground would shake, and Sokka took that to mean that a fire ball had just crashed into the city. 

The Fire Navy just wouldn’t stop, would they? They wouldn’t stop_._ It had only been a full day but Sokka felt like there couldn’t be much more of this. Something was going to break. And when it did, all these people, all these suffering, burned warriors, weren’t going to come out on top. 

(Sokka could have stopped it. Sokka could have killed Zhao.)

He pressed his hand to his forehead. It was cold and trembling. 

“What happened?” Zuko asked, and Sokka dragged his gaze away from his own lap to Zuko’s drawn face. He looked very tired. 

Sokka swallowed and felt his throat click with dehydration. “What happened to _you_?”

For a single instant, Zuko’s expression seemed to collapse inward on itself, shredded by some thought that Sokka didn’t know, but then he smoothed it out into his typical vaguely angry frown. “Zhao,” was all he said. 

“I really hate that guy,” Sokka said. His words were weak, but as he thought about it, he began to realize that he had never hated a man so violently, so virulently in his entire life. He wished he had killed him. He wanted to sink a knife into that man’s chest and watch him beg for his life. That man had chased them all the way from the South Pole, had hunted Aang all the across the world, and now here he was, waging a destruction so sickening that Sokka felt like he was drowning in the sewer of human pain that was this hastily constructed healer’s pavilion. 

He thought of Aang, his limp, unconscious body lying in the Palace’s basement. He thought of Zuko, screaming in agony, just moments ago. He thought of his sister— and oh, he was terrified. 

“You know,” Sokka said quietly, “I still don’t know where Katara is.”

Zuko blinked at him, but offered nothing. There was nothing to say. 

“Your sister, is that right?” Zuko’s uncle asked, not unkindly. 

Sokka nodded. “She disappeared yesterday. Ran off, apparently.”

“She’s a smart girl.” Zuko’s uncle had a very warm voice. It was unbelievable, really, that he was at all related to Zuko. “Have some faith in her.”

Some faith? Sokka would have more faith in her if she remained in his eyesight at all times, instead of vanishing right before the Fire Nation waged war on this city. For the Ocean’s sake, the whole damn reason he’d even gone on this hair-brained trek across the world was to make sure that Katara was _safe. _

“Maybe she’s back at the Palace,” Sokka said, like he was trying to convince himself. “Maybe she’s with Aang.”

“If they didn’t break into the city,” Zuko said roughly, “Then she’s fine. Now, what happened to you? Where were you?”

“Ask him.” Sokka tossed his hand at Zuko’s uncle. 

Zuko rolled his head over to his uncle.

“Have I ever mentioned before that you are very good at running up stairs?” Zuko’s uncle began, idly stroking his beard. 

Zuko let out a long-suffering sigh. “Here we go.”

* * *

—

* * *

Katara came to with a raging headache and sudden realization that she had two arms. She almost wished she hadn’t remembered that she had two arms, because one of them was a pulsing wave of agony, wrapped heavily in bandages and strapped across her chest. 

Ublar was lounging against the wall near her head, chin on one knee, staring out at nothing. Yoktau was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Yugoda. 

Katara didn’t announce that she was awake, and Ublar didn’t seem to realize it for a while, not until Katara gathered the strength to push herself upright. 

“I figured I should wait until you woke up,” Ublar told her. 

Katara didn’t really know what to say to that. Thank you? She said it anyways. “Thank you.”

“Whatever.” Ublar wasn’t really looking at her. “I guess you’ll be as safe here as anywhere else.”

The ground shook as another missile sent by the Fire Navy sank into the city. 

“I’m going out with a crew of warriors in a bit. Said they could always use a waterbender, so. That’s where I’m going.”

“Do you think you’ll find him out there?” Katara asked. 

Ublar pressed his lips together. In the daylight, Katara felt like she had finally gotten a good look at him. His hair was on the darker side, a fringe cutting over his forehead. He was no Jet, that was for sure. He wasn’t even a Zuko. (Katara hated to think about that time that she thought Zuko was very handsome. He wasn’t handsome— he was stupid, and a dick. Just like Jet.) He mostly kind of plain, and worn. 

“Probably not,” Ublar said, rising to his feet. “Stay out of trouble, Katara.”

“Stay safe,” Katara said weakly, waving with her one working arm. 

Ublar nodded to her, and then Katara was suddenly, startlingly, alone. 

She sat, legs crossed, her elbow on her knee. Around her, water healers busied themselves, rushing to and fro patients with injuries ranging from severe burns to knife cuts. Well, Katara felt like she could handle some of those knife cuts, and she waved down one of these women, standing on uncertain feet. 

This woman had streaks of grey in her hair, and a no nonsense scowl on her face. 

“I’m a healer,” Katara said tiredly. “Please let me help.”

“Can you do stitches?” the woman demanded of her.

Katara was a bit taken aback. “I mean,” she hedged, “I can sew?”

The woman looked like she was honestly debating letting Katara try to sew up another human being for the first time ever, but then decided against it. “Run to the front and direct people towards a place to sit.”

Katara nodded at her orders, and the water healer hurried off, probably to find a person with more experience. 

Katara felt like rolling up her sleeves, but she only had the one working arm, so it was more metaphorical than anything else. As she set off through the pavilion, idly keeping an eye out for that flash of Fire Navy armor that she wasn’t sure she had actually seen, she hoped she didn’t pass out. 

* * *

—

* * *

Sokka ended up telling Zuko what had happened on his end, once they got separated, and he told it while an older woman sank a needle-like bone through Zuko’s flesh, repeatedly. Sokka couldn’t actually look at it while it was happening or he might have thrown up. 

He wasn’t even sure that Zuko was registering anything that Sokka was saying. His uncle was holding his left hand, and Zuko had grabbed Sokka’s wrist with his right. It was painful, actually, because Zuko’s nails were like claws, but Sokka didn’t say anything about it because it seemed to be one of the only things that was keeping him focused. 

At some point, the older woman had said, “He really shouldn’t be awake for this.”

To which Zuko had snarled, “Shut up.”

And so Sokka kept talking. There really wasn’t all that much to say. When he finished, Zuko’s uncle didn’t jump in to explain what he was doing there, and Payok didn’t jump in to say what he thought of the whole matter, and of course, Zuko didn’t say anything either, but Sokka didn’t think he had the ability to, currently. You couldn’t blame him for that. 

When the older woman finally finished stitching him up and got up to leave, their group was so swamped with things that hadn’t been said that Sokka felt like he was going to drown in it. They watched her teeter off into the crowd like a group of thieves would watch a guard pass by in a hallway. Only when she was gone, and they were surrounded by the comforting false anonymity of the crowd, did it feel like something had been knocked loose. 

Zuko, of course, dropped Sokka’s wrist like it was a piece of hot coal, and Sokka rubbed it with his other hand and came away with blood. Zuko’s nails had actually pierced his skin. Great. Dude was actually feral. 

Surprisingly, it was Zuko who broke their silent stalemate. 

“I’m sorry about them.” He made eye contact with Sokka. “Onar. I—” His voice was hoarse. Probably from all the screaming. (Sokka wanted to scream— he wanted to cover his ears and eyes and bury himself in the ice—) “I watched him die.”

“Oh,” Sokka said. 

“It’s my fault.” A muscle in Zuko’s jaw jumped, likely from how hard he was clenching his teeth. “Zhao told me not to move.”

“Well,” Sokka said distantly. “Shit.”

“Sorry.” The word was rough, choked out. 

Sokka felt himself blink. The truth was— he hadn’t known Onar any more than Zuko did. He hadn’t known Tigi, and he didn’t know Payok, or Tilliye, or Hahn. He couldn’t grieve for them in the way a friend would, in the way a real member of the Tribe would. He was just some stand-in. Some kid who traveled with the Avatar. 

Maybe Payok was right. Maybe Sokka _had _gotten them all killed. 

“So, all of them,” Payok blurted, his hands curling into fists from where he had them crossed over his chest. “They’re all dead. And that Zhao’s still alive. It was all for nothing.”

“Payok,” Sokka started, but he was glad he was interrupted, because he didn’t know what he would have said. 

“I have a wife, you know,” Payok continued. “I have a wife and two kids. Two little girls. Do you think they’ll let them live?” His voice grew louder, more heated. “They’re waterbenders. They’re all waterbenders!”

Sokka felt like he was going to throw up. He knew what they did to waterbenders. 

“It’s been a day and they’re— they’re already here. They’re going to break through that wall today, Sokka, because they’re— there’s too many. We’re done for. Tui and La— everybody knows it. But, _you,”_ Sokka was startled by the true rage in Payok’s voice. He’d always been so mild-mannered, so quiet. 

Sokka did nothing as Payok stepped forward until he was towering over Sokka, his fist raised. “You could have ended this.”

He drew back his fist, and Sokka waited for it. He wasn’t sure what it was going to be, but he was going to let it happen. 

(He could have ended this.)

Zuko’s uncle grabbed Payok’s arm. 

“If you are so worried for your family,” Zuko’s uncle said, his voice steady and unyielding. “Then go be with them.” He shoved Payok back a step, and the waterbender stumbled. 

Zuko’s uncle stood in front of Sokka and seemed just to stare at Payok. Sokka couldn’t really tell what passed between them, but eventually Payok hunched his shoulders and stepped out into the crowd, disappearing into their midst without another word at all. 

Zuko’s uncle settled himself back on the ground at Zuko’s side. He let out a weary sigh, settling his hands into his blue sleeves, like nothing had happened at all. 

There was a beat. 

“You remind me a lot of my nephew,” Zuko’s uncle said, apropos of nothing. 

Sokka flicked his eyes down to Zuko, who furrowed his brow. He wasn’t sure if that was a compliment. 

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Sokka asked. The words were supposed to be light. Flippant. A joke at Zuko’s expense. They weren’t. Sokka didn’t know what was wrong with him, why his voice was so rough. 

“In some ways,” Zuko’s uncle said mysteriously. “My nephew, for example—”

“I’m right here,” Zuko said under his breath. 

“—seems to think that everything that goes wrong is his own fault.”

Sokka wasn’t sure what was happening. He tried to meet Zuko’s eyes but he turned his head towards his uncle, and all Sokka saw was the black hair of the back of his head.

“It _is _my fault,” Zuko said. 

Zuko’s uncle ignored this. “But what he does not realize is that there are forces beyond our control, every day. That other people have as much to bear as we place upon ourselves.”

“Uncle, it was _my _idea to go after the Avatar—”

Zuko’s uncle plowed right over this. “And that others have the right to choose the situations they place themselves in, and take full responsibility for the consequences of their actions.”

Zuko let out a disgruntled groan. 

It could have been Sokka’s imagination, but Zuko’s uncle’s eyes were smiling. “So, yes. I think in many ways, one should be honored to be compared to my nephew.”

Sokka pressed his lips into a flat line. “Right,” he said dubiously. 

Zuko’s uncle’s eyes turned serious again. “I may be the only one to tell you this, Sokka. But thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you for saving him.”

Sokka had to look away. He pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders, and his chest hurt. Though that was probably the cracked ribs. 

“Well, you know,” Sokka tried, “he saved my life, too. Back at the Stronghold.”

“Did he, now?” Zuko’s uncle’s eyes were smiling. 

Sokka nodded. 

The smile grew into a full grin. “Did you hear that, Nephew?”

“What,” Zuko said, surly. “Are you talking to me now?”

Zuko’s uncle shared a glance with Sokka, like he was about to do something incredibly amusing and he wanted Sokka to watch. “You have made your first friend!”

Sokka raised his brows, and Zuko was shocked into levering himself up on his elbows. 

“_What?” _Zuko snapped. “No.”

Zuko’s uncle stroked his beard and pretended to be taken aback. “Don’t tell me you have made another friend while I was gone?”

Zuko’s face was screwed up, a mix between dismay and anger and a pout, and Sokka had to agree with Zuko’s uncle— this _was_ incredibly funny. 

“Hold up, buddy,” Sokka said, pretending to be hurt, “Don’t tell me that you made friends with Aang before me? _Me?”_

Zuko gave him a look that was almost betrayed before he said, “Shut up.”

“He’s not denying it,” Sokka said to Zuko’s uncle. 

“I’m proud of you,” Zuko’s uncle said, all warm and playful, just the next line in this game of threaten-Zuko-with-ideas-of-human-friendship. Except— it struck Sokka that it seemed entirely genuine. Zuko’s uncle really _was _proud of Zuko. Zuko’s uncle rested his hand on Zuko’s shoulder, eyes warm and Sokka suddenly felt like he was intruding on something too private. 

But they were in the Northern Water Tribe’s healer’s pavilion, surrounded by the injured and dying. And the ground would occasionally shake, and out in the sea there were a hundred warships filled with thousands of soldiers, all raring to knock their way inside and rip this tribe to shreds. 

There was a woman pushing around a little cart, on it was a big bowl of soup, and a pile of bowls. As she passed the three of them, she handed each of them a bowl, and carefully bended some soup into each one. She smiled at them, and said, “We’ll get through this.”

Sokka felt incredibly touched by the gesture, but all he said was, “Thanks.”

She smiled at him again. She had dimples.

(They weren’t going to get through this— They weren’t going to get through this—)

Sokka brought the bowl of soup to his lips. He wasn’t sure if it was supposed to taste like ash, but he didn’t say anything about it, and neither did Zuko, nor Zuko’s uncle. 

He didn’t know how long the three of them sat there like that, bowls in their battered hands, before Zuko finally said, “We need to get out of here.”

Something must have happened, then. Something that Zuko noticed just before Sokka did, like Aang deciding to throw himself at an army. The idea of it only reminded him of how exhausted he was. “Why?” Sokka asked. 

Zuko jutted out his jaw in a look that said, quite plainly, _Are you stupid? _“In case you haven’t noticed, this city is being invaded.”

Sokka frowned. The sentence rolled around in his head for a beat too long before it clicked. “You mean. You mean leave. Leave the North Pole.”

“Yeah, I mean _leave_,” Zuko said, like he couldn’t believe he had to say it out loud. “Let’s find your sister and grab Aang and get out of this shithole.”

Sokka rolled his neck and thought...

Maybe they really _were_ friends. 

Huh. 

But that was beside the point. “If you’ve got a plan to, how you say, ‘Get us out of this shithole,’ then I’m all ears, O Wise One. But in case _you_ haven’t noticed, nobody is getting in or out of this city without taking into account the hundred or so warships that have it surrounded.”

Zuko’s brow twitched. “We take Appa.”

It was kinda weird, Sokka had to admit, for Zuko to say the word Appa out loud, because that was sorta Aang and Sokka and Katara’s thing. But that wasn’t the reason that Sokka grew quiet for a moment, thinking. 

He’d never considered running away. 

He thought about how dumb they’d all been, thinking that they could do something to stop this fleet. They were just a couple of kids. Aang was just a kid. The truth was that there wasn’t anything they could do. They were just… in the way. 

“You’re just using me for my flying bison,” Sokka said. 

“You caught me,” Zuko said flatly. 

“And even if that did work, we’d be leaving everyone here to— to fend for themselves.”

At this, Zuko’s eyes grew dark, churning with barely controlled anger. “Sokka,” he asked, “Do you think I can walk?”

Sokka’s eyes were drawn to the thick bandages tied around his thighs. 

“And Aang,” Zuko continued, “Aang almost died, just a couple of hours ago. Do you think he can fight?”

Sokka reached up and rubbed his forehead. “Zuko—”

“And you, Sokka. How many soldiers do you think you can take out? One? Five? Your breathing is off. You haven’t said anything but you’re injured, and you’re off your game, and there’s only one of you, and you’re just a stupid kid.”

Sokka pinched his eyes closed. “Wow, thanks, Mr. Sixteen Year Old. I forgot how ancient and wise you were.”

“Now, boys,” Zuko’s uncle tried to interject. 

“Sokka,” Zuko said. “Listen. I’m not saying I’m not to blame. Agni knows I was encouraging Aang to throw his dipshit ass at those battlecruisers. But this isn’t something we can win.”

Sokka let out a shaky breath and thought that that was unfair, coming from him. “You always thought we were going to lose. Right from the beginning.”

Zuko stared determinately back at him. “You came here to warn them. You warned them. You’re done.”

Sokka met his gaze. Now wasn’t this situation familiar? A doomed city. A single flying bison. “We’re not going anywhere without Katara.”

Zuko nodded his head. 

“And—” Sokka faltered, “Can you really not walk?”

“Well,” Zuko winced. He glanced over at his uncle, whose expression quickly shifted from mild interest to disapproving. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“But you’re going to do it anyways,” Sokka said. 

“He’s going to do it anyways,” Zuko’s uncle agreed. 

“We’re in a war,” Zuko huffed, in the tone of voice one would use when saying, ‘I was hungry.’

Sokka choked out a humorless laugh. They were in a war. Wasn’t that hilarious?

(He felt like screaming— Zuko was just screaming in agony and now he was saying ‘We’re in a war’ with that stupid huffy expression of his— )

“We’re in a war,” Sokka repeated. “And you want to run away.”

Zuko’s uncle had furrowed his brows, and now he was looking at Sokka with a very gentle kind of worry, an expression that maybe Sokka’s dad would have used, if he had been around. But Sokka had no way of knowing, because Sokka’s dad had never been around, so. No use thinking about that. No use thinking about how Sokka’s dad probably would've killed Zhao, because he cared about the Tribe and wouldn’t have ruined the best chance that they’d ever get at saving all these innocent people— like that woman with the dimples or Princess Yue or the water healer with the grey-streaked hair or Payok’s wife and kids. 

Sokka moved to stand up. “I’m going to go ask around for Katara. There’s a lot of people around here, so. Maybe someone’s seen her.”

“Good idea,” Zuko’s uncle told him. “We shall remain here.”

Sokka nodded distractedly, already looking around the maze of the healer’s pavilion, at injured warriors, at wives and husbands and mothers and fathers, a sea of blue-clad people with red-stained clothing. 

* * *

—

* * *

It happened that Katara was healing a series of small, superficial cuts on the palm of a man’s hand that he said he had never seen her around before, and Katara said she was from the Southern Tribe in a kind of off-hand way— she wasn’t paying all that much attention. Then the man asked if her name was Katara and she said:

“Yeah?”

And he said, “There was a boy who was looking for you. Said he was your brother.”

So that was how Katara found her brother, sitting cross-legged next to an injured, prone Zuko, and, shockingly, bizarrely, Zuko’s badly disguised uncle. 

She spluttered at them, and they, in concert, spluttered at her. 

“What happened to your arm?” Zuko blurted. 

“What happened to your legs?” Katara blurted. 

“What happened to your hair?” Sokka blurted. 

Katara absently reached up to touch her hair with her one arm and then quickly transitioned to pointing at Zuko’s uncle. “What happened to _him?_”

“What happened, indeed,” Zuko’s uncle said benignly, like they were discussing one of the world’s greatest mysteries. 

“Gross,” Zuko muttered. 

Next thing she knew, Sokka was on his feet and engulfing her in his arms, her injured arm pressed uncomfortably between them, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Not at that moment. Not when she could finally feel herself relax, if just for a single moment, when her older brother whispered to her, “I was so worried about you.”

“I’m sorry,” Katara whispered back. “I’m so sorry.”

And Sokka couldn’t know why she was apologizing, but he still said, “It’s all right. I’ve got you. It’s gonna be okay.” He still rubbed her back. “It’s gonna be okay.”

When Katara drew away, there were tears in her eyes. She quickly wiped them away before Zuko could see them. She cleared her throat. “Someone better start explaining themselves.”

She and Sokka settled down at Zuko’s side, and then they both started explaining themselves. Katara learned that Sokka, Zuko and Aang had all been very busy while she was gone. Katara told them how busy she had been herself. They all agreed, even Zuko, not to say anything about how stupid they had all been. Katara had never felt closer to the insane firebender than in that moment of mutual agreement. 

Maybe in a different lighting, in a different circumstance, they might have reacted to their stories beyond a mild nod, a subtle wince, but there wasn’t any energy for it. 

The question came, of course, about what to do next. Katara looked around at her brother’s worn, beaten face, at her own and Zuko’s bandaged injuries, at Zuko’s uncle’s strange appearance. 

They put off the question for as long as they could. They rested in that healer’s pavilion, rested with Zuko and his uncle and Katara didn’t at all feel at odds with either of them, not for a moment. It was very hard to think of Zuko as an enemy, not when the real enemy was close enough to breathe down their necks. 

But eventually, they couldn’t put off the question any longer. 

Eventually, a man’s voice would ring out through the healer’s pavilion, _“They’ve broken through!”_

The voice stirred the tensioned crowd into a frenzy. Healers helped the injured to their feet, warriors pushed women and children outside. There were many people who couldn’t move, and there weren’t enough people to help them. So they were left there, screaming and begging. 

“They’re coming here!” another voice shouted. “They’re coming for the injured!”

_“Everyone get out! Head for the palace!”_

Zuko had an arm thrown over Sokka’s shoulders and an arm thrown over his uncle’s. Huddled together, Katara close to her brother’s side, they followed the flow of warriors out into the streets of the Northern Water Tribe to the sight of metal tanks crunching over ice, to the sight of red-metal soldiers marching with spears at their sides, picking off warriors too encumbered with their injured tribesmen to properly fight. 

The four of them ran. They ran towards the palace. 

That was all they could do. 

* * *

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont want to call anyone out but the dude who was like 'this arc is just 'you get a trauma, everyone gets a trauma! except zuko bc hes already so fucked up' is so goddamn on point i laughed so hard at that 
> 
> another person shared their theory that payok is tuwari's husband and to that i say... incredibly astute of you :)
> 
> and im really touched by the amount of people who felt bad for zuko's fanboys,,, they're just some sweet lads. the outpouring of love for the last chapter really made my heart warm, guys
> 
> now, the next chapter is everything we have been waiting for. The Season Finale. The Big Showdown. get ready for some COMPLETE SHENANIGANS. I want to get it out before the end of july bc then i can celebrate this story's 1 year anniversary! 
> 
> ...damn it really looks like im averaging 1 year per season, huh

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on my tumblr [satirewrites!](https://satirewrites.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [Click Here to See a Map of the Region!](https://satirewrites.tumblr.com/post/615226868452507648/satirewrites-to-those-dragon-moon-fans-i)
> 
>   
Tumblr user [@whisperingcorn](https://whisperingcorn.tumblr.com/) made some art for this story! [ Click here to see it!](https://whisperingcorn.tumblr.com/post/622307874292531200/no-one-asked-but-i-really-vibed-with)  
  
Twitter user [@dirkapitation1](https://twitter.com/Dirkapitation1) made some art for this story! [ Click here to see it!](https://twitter.com/Dirkapitation1/status/1280977848082345985/photo/1)  
  
**Also, a list of art I've made for this fic!**  
[The Gaang](https://satirewrites.tumblr.com/post/190901530250/go-read-dragon-moon-pose-from-this-reference)  
[Bounty Hunter Squad+Aang](https://satirewrites.tumblr.com/post/616226190851817472/theyre-friends-i-think-june-zuko-and-aang)  
[Zuko My Man](https://satirewrites.tumblr.com/post/615593351749763072/the-wings-are-metaphorical-zuko-from-dragon-moon)  
[Dragon!Zuko](https://satirewrites.tumblr.com/post/612952729413910528/i-likes-this-one-better-zuko-from-dragon-moon)


End file.
